Masters of the Edinburgh School
WILLIAM GILLIES ROBIN PHILIPSON
Masters of the Edinburgh School WILLIAM GILLIES
&
ROBIN PHILIPSON 4 - 28 OCTOBER 2017
+(0)131 558 1200 | mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk Front: William Gillies, Rosebery near Temple, c.1960 (detail) Left: Robin Philipson, Odalisque, 1984 (detail)
WILLIAM GILLIES
CBE, RSA, RA, PPRSW (1898-1973) Sir William Gillies is still highly underrated in Modern British terms. Born in Haddington, he trained and taught at Edinburgh College of Art, and did the latter as principal. He was a great influence on many of the next generation of the Edinburgh School. He himself studied in Paris with Andre Lhote and absorbed, variously, the work of Munch, Matisse, Braque and Bonnard. Still life and landscape oils tend to be composed studio pieces of subtle complexity. Watercolours are lyrically observed renderings of the Scottish Borders based on decisive pencil or pen drawings or for larger works, executed alla prima. Gillies had a long and fruitful relationship with The Scottish Gallery which continues in the secondary market.
Gillies’ subject is the Gala Water beneath Stow with rising hillside beyond, its fields and copses climbing to a high horizon and a typically dark sky. As with many of Gillies’ oils from the 1950s, his interest is in capturing a certain time and place, reducing the landscape in front of him to patterns of flat colour, without making the full leap into abstraction. This significant oil is one of the finest to come onto the market in recent years and places Gillies amongst his English contemporaries at the heart of British Modernism.
Landscape Below Stow, c.1950’s oil on canvas, 63.5 x 76 cms signed lower right EXHIBITED Ground Floor Gallery Opening, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1981; A Dozen Paintings and Works on Paper, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, ex cat. PROVENANCE Private collection, Edinburgh
The Pentlands, Evening, 1953 oil on board, 25.5. x 35.5 cms signed lower right
Rosebery near Temple, c.1960 watercolour, 47 x 62 cms signed lower left
Stow pencil and grisaille, 23.5 x 35.5 cms signed lower right
Temple Street watercolour, 27 x 38cms signed lower right
Yorkston Road, c.1940 watercolour, 57 x 78 cms signed lower right
Portmore lies one mile north of Eddleston in the Scottish Borders, on the slopes of the Moorfoot Hills. Here Gillies captures his subject in the evening light of a summer day.
Portmore, 1964 watercolour and pencil, 39 x 56 cms signed lower right; signed and titled on label verso Exhibited W.G. Gillies, Royal Scottish Academy and Scottish Arts Council Gallery, Edinburgh, 1970, cat. 210; Modern Masters V, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, cat. 20 Provenance J.B. Dow Esquire, Edinburgh
The Lark Wood, Summer c.1940 oil on canvas, 58 x 90 cms signed lower left
The Tweed Valley watercolour, 23 x 35 cms Exhibited Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1972, cat. 370; The Edinburgh School – Works on Paper, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2010, p.17; Modern Masters V, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, cat. 21 Provenance Mr. Glen Robbie; Private Collection, Liverpool
Tweedside Landscape pencil & watercolour, 25.5 x 35.5 cms signed lower right
ROBIN PHILIPSON PPRSA RA (b.1916 - 1992)
Born in 1916 in Broughton-in-Furness, Sir Robin moved to Scotland in 1930. He studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1936 to 1940, becoming a lecturer there in 1947. He was a significant and influential presence on the Scottish Art Scene for more than three decades. He had numerous commitments as Head of School of Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art and eventually President of the Royal Scottish Academy. However, he was, above all, a practising painter, who, in spite of the demands upon him was still able to produce throughout the years a distinguished and original body of work. He received many honours throughout his life including being knighted for service to the arts in Scotland in 1976.
Judgement of Paris, 1991 oil on board, 58.5 x 58.5 cms
Odalisque, 1984 oil on canvas board, 21 x 27 cms
Companions III, 1985 pastel on sandpaper, 22 x 28 cms signed and titled on label verso; label inscribed ‘To Roy and Marie, 12th Night 1986, with love Robin’ verso Exhibited Robin Philipson, Centenary Exhibition, March 2016, cat.28 PROVENANCE Collection of Mr and Mrs Rankin, Edinburgh
Talk in the Afternoon, c.1970 pastel, 33 x 34 cms Exhibited Robin Philipson, Centenary Exhibition, March 2016, cat.15 Provenance Cyril Gerber Fine Art, Glasgow; Private Collection, Dumfries and Galloway
Nude and Soldier, Study, 1965 oil on board, 40 x 29 cms
Entracte II, 1990 pastel, 37 x 44 cms
Threnody Study oil on board, 29 x 29 cms
Women Observed watercolour, 33 x 35 cms
Robin Philipson working on The King lithograph, 1958
Philipson responded to the invitation of Harley Brothers, an Edinburgh firm of commercial lithographers, to collaborate on several stone lithos including King. The Kingly theme of this time, possibly influenced by a meeting with the Spanish painter and theatrical set designer Antoni Clave, produced many memorable paintings, enigmatic, richly rendered, with illuminated colour. In 1958 King and Hunchback (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) won him a prize at the second John Moores exhibition.
King, 1958 lithograph, 60 x 45 cms edition of 25 signed lower right Exhibited Robin Philipson, Centenary Exhibition, March 2016, cat. 5 Provenance Private Collection, East Lothian