SIR WILLIAM GILLIES CBE, RSA, RA, PPRSW (1898-1973)
A DOZEN PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER 2 - 26 November 2016
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ TEL 0131 558 1200 EMAIL mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Introduction The modern artist is the model of independence, free from academic pressure, at liberty to address any subject, answerable only to their own inspiration and what William McTaggart called “the good habit.” Two of the finest of the last century were William Gillies and Anne Redpath. Neither had entirely conventional lives (conventionality being hardly a prerequisite for the life artistic) but both respected and nurtured their considerable talents through hard work and cussed determination. Gillies had a close relationship with his parents and sisters and a happy childhood in Haddington. He went through the First War and emerged with a quiet, steely resolve to look after his own, to set aside the horrors he had witnessed but to dance to no tune but his own instinct. His subject was the landscape of Scotland, his home patch of Midlothian and the Border country and that which he saw from a tent door in the Highlands and West coast. In the studio he could look out behind his cottage in Temple or set up a still life that always owed much to Georges Braque. His vast output but disinterest in the wider art world, beyond its impact on his beloved
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Art College, means that there is still a strong case for reassessment, for his work to be read alongside the senior figures of the Modern British School where it belongs. The recent show at the Edinburgh City Art Centre looked at his work alongside his friend and colleague Johnny Maxwell whose introspection and tiny surviving oeuvre could not be more different. But Gillies saw his value and admired the very particularity about his vision. The whimsy in Maxwell’s subject work is in contrast with the rigour evident in Gillies’ still life but what is shared between all three (as well as McTaggart, Philipson and indeed the next generation of the Edinburgh School: Blackadder, Houston and Michie) is the emphasis on surface quality, strong drawing, harmonious colour and the freedom to embrace any subject matter. We are delighted to be able to include significant consignments from private collections, including from the late Roger Lloyd Pack, whose stunning still life, Christmas Paper, 1967, is one of the artist’s most successful watercolour still life subjects and surely an influence on contemporary work by Elizabeth Blackadder.
Anne Redpath was more outward in her gaze, partly because of the necessity to make her way as a professional artist and mother of three young boys through the difficult War years, living back in the Borders after more than ten years in France. In its aftermath her star rose rapidly; the beginning of the Edinburgh International Festival and the wealth of exhibiting opportunities that emerged in the fifties in Edinburgh, London, and Bristol, as well as with the Arts Council of Great Britain, saw Redpath in the vanguard. She was the direct descendent of the Scottish Colourists, Peploe in particular, as she demonstrated her extraordinary facility, colour sense and unerring choice of subject. Latterly, her curiosity and adventure found painterly fulfilment in long trips to continental Europe, initially back to the France she knew so well from the twenties but then on to Spain, Venice, Portugal and the Canaries. These adventures were always put to good use with sketchbooks filled, objects found and brought back to the studio to enrich her iconography. In the later years she was able to respond to developments in international painting by
moving towards an undefined picture space in which her flowers and vases merge into backgrounds built up with the vigour and ĂŠlan of Nicolas de Stael or Antoni Tapies. In this exhibition we are able to include a group of newly discovered paintings from the studio of her son David Michie OBE, RSA and are grateful to the family for their support and kind assistance. Both painters were nurtured by a consistent relationship with The Scottish Gallery, the reputation of artists and Gallery, intimately intertwined. Gillies and Redpath have rightly been understood to form the twin pillars of the Edinburgh School, friends to so many talents in the next generation, artist exemplars of how anything was possible, that art mattered, that painting was far from dead and that the pursuit of beauty and significance was a worthwhile calling in a rapidly changing world. THE SCOTTISH GALLERY
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This is a rare example of Gillies’ early style, which will have been influenced by the painting he saw in France during his post diploma scholarship in 1923. The short brush marks capture the effect of evening light on the pools of water and beached boats in the Fife harbour.
1 Anstruther, 1923 oil on canvas, 34 x 44 cms signed and dated lower left exhibited
Scottish Masters, The Scottish Gallery, Cork Street, London, 1999; Modern Masters V, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2016, cat. 19 provenance
Lord Stoddart of Leaston; Private Collection, Liverpool 4
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Gillies made several pen studies of sailing boats at Kippford on the Solway and at least one oil painting. As ever his spare, informative drawing renders a full understanding of the subject.
2 Kippford, c.1949 ink drawing, 43 x 55.9 cms signed lower right provenance
Dr Robert A. Lillie Collection, cat. 593; British Linen Bank, Edinburgh 6
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3 Outside Broughton, 1951 watercolour, 26 x 56 cms signed and dated lower left exhibited
William Gillies Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1952, cat. 43; Perpetua Pope, Painter and Collector, The Scottish Gallery, 2014, cat. 50 illustrated
W. Gordon Smith, W. G. Gillies, A Very Still Life, (Atelier Books, Edinburgh), p.52 provenance
Perpetua Pope, Edinburgh 8
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4 Still Life with Yellow Cloth and Blue Vase, c.1954/5 oil on canvas, 35 x 66.5 cms signed lower right exhibited
Exhibition of Paintings - WG Gillies, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1970, cat. 35; William Gillies, Landscapes and Still Lifes, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2012, p.28 10
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5 Ferniehurst, near Jedburgh, 1956 pencil drawing, 26 x 35 cms signed and dated lower left 12
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6 Halkerston, 1960 pencil and watercolour, 25 x 34.5 cms signed and dated lower right, signed on label verso provenance
Dr Robert A. Lillie Collection, cat. 83; Stone Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne; Private Collection, Ayr 14
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Gillies found innumerable subjects off the A7, travelling south from Gorebridge, at Fountainhall, Stow and down by the Cadden Water beyond Clovenfords. The view is perfectly typical of Gillies: a high horizon above a complex of fields and trees springing from the ribbon of the burn at the bottom of the composition.
7 Clovenfords, 1960 watercolour, 22 x 35.5 cms signed and dated lower right exhibited
William Gillies, Landscapes and Still Lifes, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2012, p.31 16
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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.
8 Portmore, 1964 pencil and watercolour, 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 18
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9 The Tweed Valley watercolour, 23 x 35 cms signed lower left 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 20
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Gillies’s drawings were rarely studies for future oil paintings. Instead most of them were completed as a first response to the scene in front of him. His line varies from a languorous grace to breathless fury, every mark, scribble and dot offers an image of something observed by a passionately aware and purposeful mind. Unlike his watercolours which can be contemplative, his drawings are lighthearted, energetic and spirited.
10 Trees on Roadside, Temple pen and ink, 32 x 27 cms signed lower left provenance
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh; Private Collection, Scottish Borders 22
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11 Still Life, Christmas Paper, 1967 watercolour, 67.5 x 86.5 cms signed and dated lower right exhibited
Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour; William Gillies Retrospective Exhibition, The Scottish Arts Council, Edinburgh, 1970, cat. 218 provenance
Mr. Joseph Godson; Private Collection, Edinburgh; Roger Lloyd Pack, London 24
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12 The Lay By oil on canvas, 43.5 x 63.5 cms signed lower right provenance
Private Collection, Newcastle 26
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Sir William Gillies CBE, RSA, RA, PPRSW
SELECTED BIOGRAPHY 1898 1916 1917 1919 1923 1924 1925 1928 1934 1937 1939 1940 1946 1947 1949 1950 1957 1959 1963 1964 1966 1970
1971 1973
Born in Haddington, East Lothian. Enrolled at Edinburgh College of Art, studied for two terms. Called for National Service. Drafted with the Scottish Rifles to France. Wounded and gassed and returned to Scotland in 1918. Resumed studies at Edinburgh College of Art. Awarded Travelling Scholarship and, with fellow recipient William Geissler, went to Paris to study under André Lhôte, and travelled to Italy. Returned to Scotland. Appointed Assistant Art Master at the Royal Academy, Inverness. Appointed part-time lecturer in School of Drawing and Painting, Edinburgh College of Art. Gillies’ family moved from Haddington to 162 Willowbrae Road, Edinburgh. Appointed full-time lecturer, Edinburgh College of Art. Work first exhibited at the Society of Scottish Artists. Elected professional member of the Society of Scottish Artists. Gillies moves to cottage in Temple, Midlothian, with mother and sister Janet. Elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy. Appointed Head of the School of Drawing and Painting, Edinburgh College of Art. Elected Royal Scottish Academician. Solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery (The first of seven during Gillies’ lifetime). Elected member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. Awarded CBE. Appointed Principal of Edinburgh College of Art. Elected President of Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. Elected Associate of the Royal Academy. Retired as Principal of Edinburgh College of Art. Knighted in recognition of his services to art in Scotland. Retrospective exhibition, WG Gillies, Royal Scottish Academy and Scottish Arts Council Gallery, Edinburgh. Elected Royal Academician. Died in Temple.
Right: William Gillies, 1952 28
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Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition Sir William Gillies: A Dozen Paintings and Works on Paper 2 - 26 November 2016 Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/gilliesredpath ISBN: 978-1-910264-46-2 Designed by www.kennethgray.co.uk Photography by John McKenzie Printed by J Thomson Colour 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 www.scottish-gallery.co.uk 30