modern masters ii
modern masters ii 8 january – 1 february 2014 john bellany
john houston
elizabeth blackadder
william mctaggart
fcb cadell
david michie
william crosbie
james morrison
pat douthwaite
alberto morrocco
joan eardley
robin philipson
william gillies earl haig
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ tel 0131 558 1200 email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk web www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Cover: Joan Eardley, RSA (1921-1963), Fir Trees, Perthshire, c.1959 ink, watercolour & gouache, 54 x 71 cms Left: Sir Robin Philipson prsa, ra, rsw (1916-1992), Fruit, 1984 oil on canvas, 91 x 76.5 cms
2 |
modern masters ii
Foreword This is the second in a series of exhibitions of modernist Scottish painting following on from our very successful show in the summer of 2013. Once again we have tried to cover the hundred years or so that defines the Modern period, but this time with an emphasis on the post-war decades. Our starting point is William McTaggart (1835-1910) and his wonderful painting: St Columba’s First Sermon. McTaggart was, for the first Scottish Modernists, what the Impressionists were for the Post-Impressionists in France. A painter’s painter, prolific and ambitious, by the end of his life he had left genre painting behind to become a glorious Impressionist, like Monet at Giverny. FCB Cadell’s oeuvre of Iona paintings represents a significant contribution to Scottish art and Sound of Iona with Sailing Boat is a perfect example: direct, strongly designed and faithful to the day it was painted. Dawyck Haig, who died in 2009, had his first exhibition with The Scottish Gallery in 1945, and was one of the great painters of The Borders. The Black Hill, which is above Earlston near his ancestral home at Bemersyde, displays his best qualities of strong design and local colour. By Joan Eardley, we have a powerful Catterline seascape, a rediscovered portrait of Angus Neil and a significant group of works on paper. Early drawings by Bellany and Blackadder remind us of their unique contributions to Scottish modern art, while two of the towering figures of the seventies and eighties: Philipson and Morrocco are represented by important paintings. Of the senior contemporary landscape painters, we have works by James Morrison whose Glasgow tenement painting of 1964 was only recently rediscovered in the vaults of Kelvingrove Art Gallery. guy peploe the scottish gallery
Opposite: Alberto Morrocco in his Binrock Studio, Dundee, c.1996. Photograph by Chris Close.
4 |
modern masters ii
John Bellany cbe, ra, hrsa (1942-2013) 1 Self-Portrait, 1981 charcoal drawing 76 x 57 cms signed and dated lower right provenance
Private Collection, Dumfries and Galloway. exhibited
John Bellany, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1986, cat. 85.
Great self-portraiture must be unflinchingly honest, and this drawing of 1981 is a brutal self-assessment. The artist’s face carries the fear of where his life has taken him, but still shows the determination which will lead to his rehabilitation and redemption. The charcoal marks have the nervous energy characteristic of all his best drawings, but here seem to ‘fly off’ around the face, symbolising the fracturing of his health as he fights for equilibrium.
modern masters ii
| 5
6 |
modern masters ii
John Bellany cbe, ra, hrsa (1942-2013) 2 My Grandmother, 1972 pencil drawing 55 x 38 cms signed in pencil upper right provenance
Private Collection, Dumfries and Galloway.
This drawing is part of a series of works Bellany made on trips back home during his years as a student in London, depicting his grandmother, Mrs Sonnie Maltman. Bellany focused on the detail of her face, head and neck, using a concentration of fine lines to portray the wrinkles on her skin and her wispy hair. Bellany had painted his grandmother inThe Bereaved One, 1968 (SNGMA), which shows her propped up in bed with an open bible on her lap. This drawing is a delicate and affectionate record of a much-loved relation, rendered with tenderness and honesty.
modern masters ii
| 7
8 |
modern masters ii
Elizabeth Blackadder dbe, ra, rsa, rsw, rgi (b.1931) 3 After the Storm, Contin, c.1966 pen and wash 39.5 x 49.5 cms signed in pencil lower right provenance
The collection of the late Mrs Vivien Gough-Cooper. exhibited
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, November, 1966.
Contin is a small village to the south west of Strathpeffer in Ross-shire. The artist looks up towards the hill of Achtilly and the field of grasses moves in waves which she captures in a flurry of pen marks. The sky is black and brooding as the storm passes after a downpour. Sydney Goodsir Smith titled his review of Elizabeth Blackadder’s1966exhibitionLyricandRomanticPaintings and heralds “one of the most gifted and brilliant painters in Scotland” reviewing a show which included new landscapes from Portugal as well as still lifes and interiors. In the landscapes, he saw the characteristics ofThe Edinburgh School and in After the Storm, Contin, we can see the influence of William Gillies in the choice of a high horizon and dark sky. However, this drawing has a nervous energy entirely of Blackadder’s own that evokes atmosphere and captures the spirit of the moment beautifully. (Sydney Goodsir Smith, Lyric and Romantic Paintings, November 1966)
modern masters ii
| 9
10 |
modern masters ii
FCB Cadell rsa rsw (1883-1937) 4 Sound of Iona with Sailing Boat, c.1928 oil on panel 38 x 45.5 cms signed lower right provenance
George W. Service; Private Collection, Scotland
Cadell visited Iona for the first time in 1912 and returned to paint there almost every summer. He was a prominent member of the thriving artistic community on the island, affectionately known as ‘Himself’. In the post-war period, when painting en plein air, Cadell worked on small panels with a thick white gesso ground. The chalky texture of the gesso absorbed the oil paint and enabled him to work quickly to capture the ever-changing west coast light, often in one session. Here, Cadell paints a blustery day from the north end of Iona looking towards Mull and Loch Scridain. This painting was part of the collection of George W. Service, a Glasgow-based shipowner who brought his children to Iona each summer. He was an important patron for Cadell, eventually owning well over 100 works. Service often bought several paintings from Cadell at a time and regarded his annual picture-purchasing as such an auspicious occasion that he would wear his tartan dress jacket for the night.
modern masters ii
| 11
12 |
modern masters ii
William Crosbie rsa (1915-1999) 5 Self-Portrait, Chinoiserie, 1978 oil on panel 30.5 x 23 cms signed upper right and inscribed ‘LXXVII’; inscribed ‘Chinoiserie’ verso provenance
Ancrum Gallery, Roxburghshire, cat. 2.
William Crosbie was born in Hankow, China in 1915 to British parents. They returned to Glasgow in 1926 where he entered Glasgow School of Art in 1932. He spent a year in Paris under Fernard Léger, and the School of Paris was to have a lifelong influence on him. This intense selfimage is lent a surrealist edge by the blank rendition of the eyes.
modern masters ii
| 13
14 |
modern masters ii
Pat Douthwaite (1934-2002) 6 Kore, Goddess of Life, 1974 pastel 61 x 47.5 cms signed and dated upper left provenance
Private Collection, Edinburgh.
Pat Douthwaite was born in Glasgow in 1934. She began to study mime and modern dance with Margaret Morris, whose husband, J.D. Fergusson, encouraged her to paint. With this important influence apart, she was self-taught. At the height of her artistic powers, she produced memorable and often unsettling images, drawn from the real and the imagined world. She was fascinated with female subjects which included Mary Queen of Scots, Amy Johnstone, and Goddesses. In 1982, The 369 Gallery, hosted their Edinburgh Festival exhibition‘Worshipped Women’: An Alphabet of GreekGoddesseswhichincludedawrittenintroductionby Robert Graves. The exhibition included a collection of drawings and paintings undertaken in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. “K is for Kore, the Goddess of Death in Life. She is also named Persephone, the daughter Demeter was looking for. She was out looking for flowers with some other girls when she found a narcissus. As she bent to pick up the flowers the earth opened up and Hades grabbed her and pulled her into the Underworld. He married her and she was doomed to live in the Underworld for six months of each year. My drawing of her is of a young nude body full of life, the coat flapping in the wind. But the head is a skull and the arms are raised backwards in anger.” (PatDouthwaite,1982,‘WorshippedWomen’:AnAlphabet of Greek Goddesses, 369 Gallery, Edinburgh, 1982)
modern masters ii
| 15
16 |
modern masters ii
Joan Eardley rsa (1921-1963) 7 Black Girl, c.1956-61 pastel drawing 18.5 x 18 cms provenance
Private Collection, Lancashire.
Another study of the same subject is reproduced as no. 151 in Christopher Andreae’s recent biography of Joan Eardley. The unidentified child must have come into the studio with the Samson kids and caught the artist’s eye, although no known painting resulted.
modern masters ii
| 17
18 |
modern masters ii
Joan Eardley rsa (1921-1963) 8 By the Fireside, c.1956 oil on canvas 57 x 77 cms
By The Fireside depicts Angus Neil in front of the range at no 1 Catterline, the cottage Joan Eardley occupied from 1954 to 1959. There is a strong light source from the cottage window to the left so that the chair casts shadows on the earth floor. Neil, with pipe, long coat, moustache and mop of hair sits in front of the range – a favourite motif, painted in Arran, Glasgow and Catterline. Joan met Angus Neil at Hospitalfield in 1947 and he enrolled in classes at the Glasgow School of Art where Joan briefly returned in 1948. He followed her to Catterline and helped ‘fit out’ her first cottage at no 1: he had been apprenticed to a joiner after the War and also made crude stretchers for Joan. He was a troubled individual who perhaps relied on Joan emotionally and spent most of the years after she died in and out of mental hospitals until his death in 1992. She painted him several times, most famously as Sleeping Nude, 1955 (SNGMA) a year or so before our picture, which has only recently been rediscovered.
modern masters ii
| 19
20 |
modern masters ii
Joan Eardley rsa (1921-1963) 9 Girl in Profile, c.1960 pastel drawing 22.5 x 14.5 cms provenance
Private collection, Lancashire; The Artist’s Studio Inventory no. ED906
Joan Eardley frequently drew local children in her Townhead studio. She was not short of models as the streets were teeming with children who often asked her to draw them. “They would usually come up to me and say ‘Will you paint me?’ In fact I am always having knocks on the door and this question. Some of them I don’t feel particularly interested in and so I just send them away, but the ones that I want to paint, I try to get to sit still, so mostly I just watch them moving about and do the best I can.” (Joan Eardley, interview c.1961)
modern masters ii
| 21
22 |
modern masters ii
Joan Eardley rsa (1921-1963) 10 Sea at Catterline, c.1960 oil on board 79 x 119 cms signed on verso provenance
Private collection, Lancashire.
After buying a cottage in the small fishing village of Catterline in 1954, Eardley divided her time between there and her studio in Townhead, Glasgow. She painted out of doors in all weathers and her easel often had to be weighed down with rocks against the gale. This magnificent seascape represents the artist at her best. Expressionist in theme, tachiste in execution, she manages to capture the essence of the storm. The fishermen’s boats have been brought up to safety past the high tide mark while the foaming sea crashes onto the black sand and rocks. The blue used in a number of her paintings to depict the fishing boats was boat paint borrowed from the men maintaining their vessels.
modern masters ii
| 23
24 |
modern masters ii
Joan Eardley rsa (1921-1963) 11 Street Scene, c.1960 pastel drawing 14 x 22.5 cms provenance
Private collection, Lancashire; The Artist’s Studio Inventory no. ED470
Eardley used pastel for its immediacy, capturing the energy of the moment. This is a typical winter street scene wherein she depicts a group of three children, wrapped up in coats and hats, playing. Evening is drawing in and we are beckoned towards the illuminated stairways and windows. “The character of Glasgow lies in its back streets which are for me pictorially exciting. The back streets mean almost entirely screaming, playing children – all over the streets – and only in the shadows of the doorways groups of women, and at street corners groups of men, but always chiefly children and the noise of children.” (Joan Eardley, interview c.1961)
modern masters ii
| 25
26 |
modern masters ii
Joan Eardley rsa (1921-1963) 12 Tenements, c.1960 pastel drawing 16 x 12 cms provenance
Private collection, Lancashire; The Artist’s Studio Inventory no. ED410
Eardley’s powerful drawings and paintings of the urban dereliction of Glasgow in the 1950’s and early 60’s are poignant depictions of the character of place somehow indivisible from the character of its people. Eardley captured “gaunt tenements and back-courts, the dark strength of their forms and the unexpected colour in their peeling masonry.” (Cordelia Oliver, Joan Eardley and Glasgow, Scottish Art Review, Special Number. Vol XIV. No 3. 1974, p.17)
modern masters ii
| 27
28 |
modern masters ii
Joan Eardley, RSA (1921-1963) 13 Fir Trees, Perthshire, c.1959 ink, watercolour & gouache 54 x 71 cms exhibited
Joan Eardley, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1984, cat. 7.
Joan Eardley was a friend of Marion Finlay, the wife of Ian Hamilton Finlay. In 1959, she visited her at Comrie, Perthshire and during this time made several drawings, sketches and at least one painting. Fir Trees exhibits her fast picture-making techniques: using ink, watercolour and gouache and the characteristics of the surface she worked on. The end result has all the hallmarks of her later, more abstract and expressionist work.
modern masters ii
| 29
30 |
modern masters ii
Sir William Gillies cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973) 14 Near Peebles, 1972 watercolour 25.5 x 35.5 cms signed lower right
Gillies went by car or motorbike from his cottage in Temple and explored the landscape of the area, stopping whenever something caught his eye. One of his favourite subjects is one taken from the side of the road, looking down to the valley floor and then up towards the hillside opposite. He was very familiar with the A72 east and west of Peebles, and it is likely that this painting belongs to that area. The leaves are just starting to turn, signalling the beginning of autumn. The line of trees leads the eye into the painting, with dykes and trees crisscrossing the hillside opposite. The eye is relieved by a bright strip of sky at the top of the picture. Near Peebles was painted just one year before Gillies’ death in 1973.
modern masters ii
| 31
32 |
modern masters ii
Sir William Gillies cbe, rsa, ra, pprsw (1898-1973) 15 The Manse at Bolton, Midlothian, c.1942 pencil and watercolour 43 x 56 cms signed lower right provenance
Moss Gallery; Private Collection, Herefordshire.
The artist’s preferred landscape is the countryside rather than wilderness. He includes the roads, fields, fences, farms and villages, or as here, a country manse. Bolton is a hamlet South West of Haddington, and the manse still stands today, exactly as Gillies portrayed it.
modern masters ii
| 33
34 |
modern masters ii
The Earl Haig obe, rsa, rsw (1918-2009) 16 The Black Hill, 1998 oil on canvas 75 x 105 cms signed lower right provenance
Private Collection, Edinburgh. exhibited
Haig, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2001, cat. 31.
“This is an interpretation of the steep cliffs below Scott’s View on the right and the movement of the Tweed towards the bottom left corner. Pine and Ash trees in the foreground set back the banks of Old Melrose Abbey. The dark Black Hill is the focal point and is the apex of the triangle with shingle banks to the right and the vertical pink form to the left. This is a tribute to William Gillies.” (Earl Haig, 2001)
modern masters ii
| 35
36 |
modern masters ii
John Houston obe, rsa, rsw (1930-2008) 17 Lake at Sunset, 1989-90 oil on canvas 100 x 100 cms signed lower right exhibited
John Houston, Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, August 1990, cat. 71.
In 1989 John Houston retired from the Edinburgh College of Art to focus on painting full time and this painting was exhibited and sold at his famous ‘sell out’ show of 1990. He exhibited five works at the exhibition depicting Lake Lucerne in the Swiss Alps. He admired Emil Nolde (1867-1956) and in particular Max Beckman (1884-1950), and his own artistic personality was certainly Expressionist. “[Mood] is one of the things I will take away in memory from a subject – the light and the mood. The mood will be caught up with light, certain things to do with the light and the time of day, the weather and so on. And that is something I would probably retain in the studio, maybe more than being truthful to the sketch as far as the physical nature of things might be… I might make certain features or colours more dominant for the mood or the light of the composition.” (‘John Houston in conversation with Philip Long’, John Houston, National Galleries of Scotland, 2005)
modern masters ii
| 37
38 |
modern masters ii
William McTaggart rsa, rsw (1835-1910) 18 St Columba’s First Sermon, 1895 oil on canvas 51 x 63.5 cms signed and dated lower right provenance
Lindsay Collection, Dundee; DM Jackson, Edinburgh; RW Walker. exhibited
William McTaggart Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Aitken Dott and Son, Edinburgh, 1907, cat. 13; William McTaggart Exhibition, Manchester City Art Gallery, 1937, cat. 2.
There has been much discussion about the development of William McTaggart’s painting style in relation to Impressionism in France, but where McTaggart’s work differed from his French contemporaries is in the emotional content of the paintings; subjects such as fishermen battling with a storm and ships leaving with emigrants to America are observations on the communities with which he was connected in his own life and whose lives he records with such passion and poignancy in his paintings. In St Columba’s First Sermon, McTaggart imagines an historic moment as Scotland’s most celebrated evangelist stands on the shore, arms outstretched as he preaches to a seated congregation, merging into the machair as if the idyllic landscape is imbued with the joyous, spiritual message.
modern masters ii
| 39
40 |
modern masters ii
David Michie obe, rsa, frsa (b.1928) 19 Figures on the Shore, 1964 oil on canvas 86 x 108 cms signed lower left provenance
Private Collection, Aberdeenshire. exhibited
Traverse Gallery, Edinburgh, 1965
“A son of Anne Redpath, [Michie] was born when that painter was living in St Raphael so, by process of osmosis and symbiosis, he absorbed the sun-drenched aspects of the surrounding flora and fauna and the responses these produced in artists such as Dufy, Matisse and the Fauves.” (Edward Gage, Edinburgh, June 1994) Figures on the Shore exemplifies these influences, with Michie’s bold use of primary colours and simplified forms in a composition which harnesses naturalism in abstract design. The flat tones of the sky anchor the scene, while the thick, flowing strokes create an expressive and vibrant setting for the gestural figures.
modern masters ii
| 41
42 |
modern masters ii
David Michie obe, rsa, frsa (b.1928) 20 The Photographer, 1966 oil on linen on board 31 x 36 cms signed lower left provenance
Private Collection, East Lothian.
After studying under Sir William Gillies at the Edinburgh College of Art, Michie travelled to Italy with John Houston. Upon returning, he taught at ECA and immersed himself in the Scottish art scene, establishing himself as an active member of the Edinburgh School. “Almost imperceptibly David Michie has become a father-figure of Scottish painting, arguably the most reliable, accomplished and experimental among his contemporaries.� (Edward Gage, Edinburgh, June 1994)
modern masters ii
David Michie obe, rsa, frsa (b.1928) 21 Roasting Pig, 1974 oil on board 26 x 31 cms signed lower left provenance
Private Collection, East Lothian.
“At a time when art is in danger of becoming too po-faced and illustrative as a vehicle for polemic or socio-political documentation, Michie’s art remains one of the joys resident in the creative process of sensuous communication.” (Edward Gage, Edinburgh, June 1994)
| 43
44 |
modern masters ii
James Morrison rsa, rsw (b.1932) 22 Half Demolished Tenements, 1964 oil on canvas 32.5 x 154 cms signed lower left provenance
The Artist’s Studio; Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow.
James Morrison graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1954, and as early as 1952 he had begun sketching and painting the buildings and character of Victorian Glasgow. HepaintedHalfDemolishedTenementsonhisreturntoGlasgowin1964,havingpreviously relocated to Catterline in the late 1950s. “Morrison’s paintings of Glasgow tend to fall into one of two types. They are either images of dereliction and ruin or they give to their subjects a faded elegance, which seems to aspire to something that is past or passing.” (Land and Landscape,The Paintings of James Morrison by John Morrison,The Fleming Collection, London, 2013, p.28)
modern masters ii
| 45
46 |
modern masters ii
James Morrison rsa, rsw (b.1932) 23 Belhaven Terrace, Glasgow, 1975 oil on canvas 91.5 x 61 cms signed and dated lower right
Belhaven Terrace is situated in the West End of Glasgow just off Great Western Road. “[In this painting]… the instability of the houses is highlighted by the verticality of the trees. The stark austerity of the bare trunks endorses a darker reading than the buildings themselves might warrant… the barren foreground trees are a repeated feature of these paintings. Most commonly they appear in images of more elegant buildings. It serves in all the images to distance the viewer from the building and sets the mood for the painting. The bleak winter of the trees in part replaces the miserable decay of ruined buildings and stops these more consciously elegant paintings becoming wholly, or even largely, celebratory.” (LandandLandscape,ThePaintingsofJamesMorrisonbyJohn Morrison, The Fleming Collection, London, 2013, p.28)
modern masters ii
| 47
48 |
modern masters ii
James Morrison rsa, rsw (b.1932) 24 Summer Fields, Balgove, 16.vii.1987 oil on gesso board 80 x 114 cms signed provenance
The Artist’s Studio; Private Collection, London exhibited
FromEasttoWest–NewPaintingsfromScotlandandCanada, Edinburgh Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1988, cat. 25.
In 1987, James Morrison retired after twenty-two years in the Painting School at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Now as a full time painter, he had the opportunity to travel on an extended painting trip to the Canadian Saskatchewan Prairies and the landscape of Western Ontario. The paintings from this Canadian venture were exhibited alongside his well recognised Scottish paintings of Rannoch Moor, Assynt and Angus in an exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in August 1988 which included the painting Summer Fields, Balgove.
modern masters ii
| 49
50 |
modern masters ii
Alberto Morrocco obe, rsa, rsw (1917-1998) 25 Still Life with Chinese Teapot and Apples, 1959 oil on canvas 64 x 76 cms signed upper left
Morrocco’s still life from the 1950s owes something to the École de Paris, in particular Matisse and Derain. In this example, his use of strong colour and oil paint is confident and gestural. By 1959 he had been appointed Head of the Painting School at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee and he had left behind the academic flavour and tonal constructions of earlier work.
modern masters ii
| 51
52 |
modern masters ii
Alberto Morrocco obe, rsa, rsw (1917-1998) 26 Still Life with Pink Rose, 1983 oil on canvas, 60.5 x 76.5 cms signed and dated upper right provenance
Private Collection, Perth and Kinross.
There is a decorative assurance about the best work by Alberto Morrocco. His sense of design is applied to whatever subject he addresses and his brilliant draughtsmanship underpins his painting. His colour is by now rich and distinctive but the composition plays brilliantly around the black compotier, pale background and tablecloth.
modern masters ii
| 53
54 |
modern masters ii
Sir Robin Philipson prsa, ra, rsw (1916-1992) 27 Fruit, 1984 oil on canvas 91 x 76.5 cms signed and inscribed on label verso
Still lifes and studio interiors dominated the last phase of Philipson’s career, and this painting features both. Fruit is an example of a ‘painting within a painting’, characteristic of his interest in ambiguous space, often with an emphasis on a vertically dominated composition.
modern masters ii
| 55
56 |
modern masters ii
Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition modern masters ii
8 January – 1 February 2014 Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/modernmasters ISBN: 978 1 905146888 Designed by www.kennethgray.co.uk Photography by William Van Esland Printed by Barr Printers All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ tel 0131 558 1200 email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk web www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Right: Alberto Morrocco obe, rsa, rsw (1917-1998) Still Life with Pink Rose, 1983, oil on canvas, 60.5 x 76.5 cms