WORKS ON PAPER JAMES COWIE & WILLIAM CROSBIE
WORKS ON PAPER JAMES COWIE & WILLIAM CROSBIE 6 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2017
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6HZ +44 (0) 131 558 1200 mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk scottish-gallery.co.uk
INTRODUCTION ~ In the last century or so, the modern period, Scotland has accelerated its contribution to British art through hundreds of individual artists, many of them quite resistant to the orthodoxy of art historical taxonomy. Two such are James Cowie and William Crosbie. Cowie had a cussed determination to look back to the early Renaissance and he discouraged his students from indulging in experimentation with the freedoms of modernism. But in his own work, a playfulness and intellectualism allies him, however unwittingly, with surrealism. Crosbie, a generation younger, studied in Paris with Leger and allowed the vocabulary of modernism and Picasso in particular to influence his stylistic development but like Cowie he remained a determined individual, playing with ideas of decorative and distorted imagery to his own ends. Both were highly gifted draughtsmen and seeing their work together on page and wall is no hardship and makes a link (a generalisation?) which can enrich our understanding of the Scottish School.
James Cowie, c.1950 Illustrated in Richard Calvocoressi, James Cowie, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1979
JAMES COWIE RSA, LLD 1886-1956 ~ Born in Aberdeenshire, Cowie studied at Glasgow School of Art. He later taught at Bellshill Academy, near Glasgow, followed by the position of Warden at Hospitalfield House. It was here that Cowie taught Joan Eardley and where they famously clashed over their different approaches to painting. Cowie’s style of painting was precise and linear. A great admirer of artists like Poussin and the pre-raphaelite painters, he felt he shared their classical values of self-restraint and objectivity. He had a meticulous way of working and believed that art was a product of thought and reason.
James Cowie Head Study, Girl, 1925-30 chalk drawing, 29.5 x 26 cms Exhibited James Cowie, ‘A Retrospective of Paintings, Pastels, Drawings and Watercolours,’ The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1986; ‘Enigmata’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2015, cat.13
James Cowie Head of a Girl, 1925-30 pencil drawing 40 x 38 cms
James Cowie In the Country, 1930 watercolour, 22 x 23 cms signed lower left Provenance Label verso inscribed ‘Young People’ Exhibited Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1953; ‘James Cowie Memorial Exhibition’, The Arts Council Scottish Committee, Travelling exhibition, 1957, cat.53; ‘Enigmata’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2015, cat.14
James Cowie Figure with Apple and Vase, c.1935 watercolour & conte, 20.5 x 24.5 cms Exhibited ‘Enigmata’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2015, cat.18
James Cowie Book and Leaves, 1935 mixed media, 28 x 35 cms signed lower right Provenance Bellshill Academy, Glasgow Exhibited James Cowie, ‘Memorial Exhibition’, The Arts Council Scottish Committee, Travelling exhibition, 1957, cat.75; Recent Acquisitions, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1977, cat.30; ‘Enigmata’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2015, cat.19
James Cowie Still Life with Picasso Book, c.1940 pencil drawing, 34 x 25 cms signed lower right Exhibited ‘Enigmata;, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2015, cat.27
James Cowie Still Life with Tanagra Figure, c.1940 pencil drawing, 19.5 x 24 cms Exhibited ‘James Cowie’, Bourne Fine Art, London, 1987, cat.54; ‘Enigmata’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2015, cat.26
James Cowie Still Life with Glass, Apple and Spoon, 1944 mixed media, 25 x 47 cms Illustrated Richard Calvovoressi, James Cowie, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1979, plate.54 Exhibited James Cowie, ‘Memorial Exhibition’, The Arts Council Scottish Committee, Travelling exhibition, 1957, cat.64; ‘James Cowie, The Artist at Work’, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1978, as “Still Life with Mirror”; ‘Paintings-Drawings-Watercolours’, Cyril Gerber Fine Art, Glasgow, 1988; James Cowie RSA, Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh, 2013; ‘Enigmata’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2015, cat.33
James Cowie Back of a Nude, c.1944 charcoal on paper, 34.5 x 25 cms Exhibited ‘Enigmata’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2015, cat.30
James Cowie Tanagra Figures (Planes and Figures), c.1947 pen & pastel, 30.5 x 31 cms signed lower right Exhibited ‘Enigmata’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, June 2015, cat.37
William Crosbie, 19.9.1995, courtesy of the William Crosbie Estate
WILLIAM CROSBIE RSA 1915-1999 ~ William Crosbie was born in Hankow, China, to Scottish parents. His family stayed in China until 1926, when they moved to Glasgow. Crosbie went on to study at the Glasgow School of Art from 1932-5. A travelling scholarship took him to Paris, where he studied History of Art at The Sorbonne and worked under Fernand Léger. Crosbie showed regularly in mixed Scottish exhibitions, as well as having many solo shows. A retrospective exhibition was held at The Scottish Gallery, in 1980 and he will be included in the new exhibition ‘A New Era: Scottish Modern Art 1900-1950,’ 2nd December 2017- 10th June 2018 curated by Alice Strang. The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow Museums, Newport Museum and Art Gallery, National Trust for Scotland, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Hunterian Art Gallery, Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture, and National Galleries of Scotland are among the collections that contain his work.
Glasgow-born Robert Crombie Saunders studied at the University of Glasgow before embarking on a career as a schoolmaster and a writer. His literary work mainly relates to various aspects of Scottish life and culture. In 1944 he edited a selection of Hugh MacDiarmid’s poems, which did much to restore MacDiarmid’s reputation after the Second World War. Crombie Saunders’s poem on the Clearances is well known, but his work in general has been published sparingly. The artist, William Crosbie, saw experimentation as an essential aspect of a painter’s development. His work, created over fifty years, is diverse in style and ranges from cubist to surrealist. Here, the bold use of colour and large brushstrokes give the portrait an almost expressionist character.
Wiliam Crosbie Portrait of poet Robert Crombie Saunders, 1942 gouache, 76 x 51 cms signed lower left
William Crosbie Yaws in the Jaws, c.1952 ink on paper, 47 x 30 cms signed and inscribed with title lower left
Willaim Crosbie Evolution (Four Nude Figures), c.1977 oil on board, 35.5 x 44.4 cms Exhibited ‘William Crosbie Retrospective Exhibition’, Ewan Mundy Fine Art, Glasgow and London, 1990, cat.71
William Crosbie Gironda, c.1980 ink on paper, 40 x 26 cms Provenance The Artist’s Estate Exhibited ‘Life Studies’, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, February 2016, cat.40
William Crosbie Petersfield Kitchen, Still Life Abstract, 1984 ink on paper, 30 x 21cms
William Crosbie Parsley, Epergne, 1989 ink and crayon, 19 x 29 cms signed and dated lower right inscribed with title lower left
William Crosbie Eternal Triangles (Male and Female), 1989 watercolour, 17.5 x 25 cms signed and dated lower right
William Crosbie Left: Girl with Flowers, 1991 oil on board, 76.2 x 63.5 cms signed and dated lower left Above: Lunch in Dutch Tavern, 1991 ink on paper, 29 x 20.3 cms signed and dated lower right inscribed with title lower left
William Crosbie Still Life with Gladioli, Carnations and Irises, 1991 ink and coloured pencil crayon, 61 x 51 cms signed lower left
William Crosbie Culture Crosses Culture, 1993 watercolour, 28 x 46 cms signed and dated lower right
Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition: WORKS ON PAPER JAMES COWIE & WILLIAM CROSBIE 6-30 SEPTEMBER 2017 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.