Your Guide to the Art Collection
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ART AND ACADEMIA YOUR GUIDE TO THE ART COLLECTION Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS 0131 449 5111 www.hw.ac.uk AG1107 CONTEMPORARYFind out more SCOTTISH ART FURTHER READING Heriot-Watt University would like to thank the Patrick N. O’Farrell: Heriot-Watt University: artists, their relatives and estates for permission An Illustrated History to include their artworks. Pearson Education Ltd, 2004 Produced by Press and Public Relations, Heriot-Watt University: A Place To Discover. Heriot-Watt University Your Guide To The Campus Heriot-Watt University, 2006 Printed by Linney Print Duncan Macmillan: Scottish Art 1460-2000 Photography: Simon Hollington, Douglas McBride Mainstream, 2000 and Juliet Wood Duncan Macmillan Copywriter: Duncan Macmillan Scottish Art in the Twentieth Century Mainstream, 1994 © Heriot-Watt University 2007 THE ART COLLECTION 1 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION A highlight of the collection is a group of very fine INTRODUCTION 1 Heriot-Watt University’s art collection reflects paintings by artists associated with the College of SIR ROBIN PHILIPSON 2 its history and the people who have shaped its Art, a good many of them first as student and then development over two centuries. Heriot-Watt as teacher. Many of these pictures were bought JOHN HOUSTON 4 University has a long-standing relationship with by Principal Tom Johnston and gifted by him to the DAVID MICHIE 6 the visual arts. One of the several elements brought University. The collection continues to grow, however. ELIZABETH BLACKADDER 8 together to create Edinburgh College of Art in 1907 Three portraits by Raeburn of members of the was the art teaching of what was then Heriot-Watt Gibson-Craig family and a magnificent portrait DAVID McCLURE 10 College. Informal teaching links continued between by Sir William Beechey of James Watt whose name ALASTAIR MACK 12 the two institutions thereafter until in 1968 a formal the University proudly bears have also recently DENIS PEPLOE 14 link was created when they took joint responsibility been added. The University has also established ADAM BRUCE THOMSON 16 for teaching architecture and planning. Subsequently, the tradition of commissioning portraits of its and until 2007, the University ratified the degrees Principals from leading contemporary artists. PAUL FURNEAUX 18 awarded by the College of Art. The relationship WILLIAM WILSON 20 between the two institutions is reflected in the The art collection is dispersed throughout the SIR WILLIAM GILLIES 22 University’s art collection. University’s Edinburgh Campus, and contributes ALBERTO MORROCCO 24 to it’s unique learning environment. WILLIAM BAILLIE 26 JOHN BELLANY 28 EDUARDO PAOLOZZI 30 JAMES MORRISON 32 PAST PRINCIPALS 34 HENRY RAEBURN 36 SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY 38 FIND OUT MORE 40 2 THETHE ART ART COLLECTION COLLECTION 3 SIR ROBIN PHILIPSON laid out, a nude in a doorway, a baboon and a As President of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) bookcase seem at first to be an incongruous and Head of Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, company. With the title they suggest some kind Sir Robin Philipson, PRSA, RSW, (1916-1992) was of Darwinian confrontation between life and death one of the most influential figures in Scottish art and book learning. But the real drama is in the in the 1960s and ‘70s. Born in Lancashire, he was contrasting colour and in the rich texture of paint educated at Dumfries Academy and studied at laid on with a palette knife. In Byzantine Altar this Edinburgh College of Art from 1936-1940. After is even clearer. The scarlet and gold and the loaded war service in India with the King’s Own Scottish paint are used, not so much to represent an altar Borderers, he returned in 1946 to teach at the with an icon of the Madonna on it, all framed by ABOVE: College of Art where he remained until he retired the arched interior of a church, though these Humanity: The Rest as Head of Painting in 1982. Though very close to things are recognisable in the painting, but to LEFT: William Gillies professionally (Principal of Edinburgh create a pictorial equivalent to it. Byzantine Altar College of Art 1960-1966), Philipson’s painting was always more flamboyant than that of the older painter, as indeed he was personally a more extrovert and colourful figure. Initially much influenced by the example of the expressionist painter Oscar Kokoschka, Philipson’s work remained in touch with Continental and American models. While never completely abstract, the motifs he uses, especially nudes, animals and birds, all take their part in a drama that is taking place autonomously within the picture and without any direct reference to any real or imagined events in the world outside. In that respect these two pictures, Byzantine Altar and Humanity: The Rest are very characteristic. In the latter picture, a figure 4 THE ART COLLECTION 5 JOHN HOUSTON There is one motif that has recurred more than John Houston was born in Fife in 1930. He went any other in Houston’s art. Standing at the entrance to school at Buckhaven Academy. Facing the choice to the Firth of Forth the great basalt mass of the between art and a career as a professional footballer, Bass Rock with its tall cliffs dominates the view. he chose art and studied at Edinburgh College of In Towards the Bass Rock, the rock is seen silhouetted Art from 1949-53. Like all of his generation he was against the sky from the cliffs just to the east of much influenced by the teaching and even more North Berwick. The colours are predominantly the by the example of William Gillies. After taking his grey and blue of sea and sky, but their cool tints Diploma Houston spent a year in Italy on a travelling are lifted by the warmer tones of rocks and beach. scholarship before returning to take a post teaching The handling of the paint is broad and energetic. ABOVE: at the College. He and Elizabeth Blackadder were It invokes as much as it describes the stormy Cornfield and Sea married shortly afterwards. Houston retired from movement of clouds and water. LEFT: teaching in 1989. Towards the Bass Rock At times in his earlier career his painting came close to abstraction, but his real concern has always been with the world around him and the search to find a way of expressing his emotional response to it. Landscape, and especially the sea, have always been central to his art. It is a feature of the east coast of Scotland that cultivation is often taken right to the edge of the sea. In the beautiful small picture, Cornfield and Sea, Houston makes this into a brilliant drama of blue and gold, the waving corn against the waves of the sea, all beneath a blazing sunset sky. The rhythmic brushwork that describes the cornfield and the strong simple colour are a fitting homage to Van Gogh. 6 THE ART COLLECTION 7 DaviD MICHIE edge of the garden. The rest of the composition David Michie RSA, RGI, FRSA was born in San includes other flowers that he recorded growing Raphael, France in 1928 and is a leading member there and the shapes made by the little paths that of the close-knit group of painters who formed an wind through the rocks of the little hill. informal Edinburgh school in the postwar decades. Indeed, as the son of Anne Redpath, he was in a Principal Tom Johnston was friendly with many of sense born into this circle, though he was born in the Edinburgh painters and took a great interest in Hawick and spent his early years there. Like many their work. He was especially close to David Michie of the group, he had a long association with as they had been at school together in Hawick. This Edinburgh College of Art where he was taught by painting was bought by Principal Johnston from the ABOVE: William Gillies and where he took his Diploma in artist’s studio in the early 1980s and gifted to the Strange Bird Alighting, Anglesea 1953. Awarded a travelling scholarship, he then University. If that was a generous act of friendship, LEFT: spent a year in Italy. He taught at Gray’s School it is nevertheless an acquisition that stands on its Star of the Veldt of Art in Aberdeen for a number of years, before own merit. returning to teach at Edinburgh College of Art, where latterly he became Head of Painting, Strange Bird Alighting, Anglesea, the second picture succeeding Sir Robin Philipson. by David Michie in the collection, was gifted by the Scottish Arts Council when it dispersed its own As his teacher, Gillies has remained a life-long collection. A lyrical watercolour, it was painted shortly influence on David Michie’s art. As Gillies did in his after the artist’s first visit to Australia in 1979. It does art, Michie looks for the poetry in the world around not represent a particular bird, but records his wonder us and always takes something he has seen as his at the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the flora and starting point for a picture. This painting, Star of the fauna he saw there. Veldt, takes its title from the name of the orange flowers in the foreground which are native to South Africa. The artist drew the flowers in the Royal Botanic Gardens where they were growing on the sunny side of the rockery which is built around an artificial hill and waterfall at the southern 8 THE ART COLLECTION 9 LEFT: ELIZABETH BLACKADDER across it. The Indian painting must be on the wall Tulips and Indian Painting Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, RA, RSA, RSW, DLitt, behind the artist, but we cannot see her.