William Wilson Master Printmaker William Wilson Master Printmaker

WILLIAM WILSON MASTER PRINTMAKER WILLIAM WILSON MASTER PRINTMAKER 7-31 OCTOBER 2015 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ TEL 0131 558 1200 EMAIL [email protected] www.scottish-gallery.co.uk Inside front cover: From My Window, 1935 (detail) (cat. 25) 2 FOREWORD Like many of the significant Scottish artists of the growing interest in etching in particular. This was 20th century, William Wilson was not satisfied fuelled by a number of publications by London with the restrictions of one medium, but focused art dealers, including James McNeill Whistler’s his energies on three. Throughout his life he fixed etchings of cityscapes. Printmaking began to be intently on each in turn; etching, watercolour appreciated as a fine art, rather than solely an painting and latterly stained glass design, which illustrative medium. Scotland had already a strong brought him an international reputation. However, printmaking heritage. DY Cameron, James McBey it is his work in etching, made between 1925 and and Muirhead Bone championed the importance 1940 which is arguably his most powerful and of printmaking at the start of the twentieth century, successful work, and a unique contribution to and helped the revival of the interest in etching. Scottish art history. From 1908 printmaking was established as part of Wilson was born in Edinburgh in 1905, the son the curriculum at Edinburgh College of Art, under of John Wilson a gas meter index maker. His uncle the tutelage of the young Ernest S. Lumsden. Thomas worked for the local firm of stained glass In 1921 the Society of Artist Printers was artists James Ballantine and Son, with whom Wilson established in Glasgow. This was to prove an first worked for in 1920, aged 15. Wilson attended important asset to printmakers working in Scotland, evening classes at Edinburgh College of Art and as it afforded them a platform to exhibit work. was taught there by Adam Bruce Thomson, who Previously, printmakers had to rely on London was 20 years his senior. Bruce Thomson recognised dealers for exposure, as McBey and Cameron had Wilson’s skill as a draughtsman and encouraged done. The Society of Artist Printers relocated to him to study at the College full time, which he did, Edinburgh in 1931 with E.S. Lumsden taking the enrolling in 1932. This was to be the start of an role of president. Thus Wilson found himself at the important friendship for both artists, which would centre of a flourishing group of printmakers and with last up until Wilson’s death in 1972. The entirety of the encouragement of two older artists, Adam Bruce this exhibition has come from the estate of Adam Thomson and E.S Lumsden, Wilson threw himself Bruce Thomson, Wilson having gifted each print to into work. It was at this time that Bruce Thomson his friend and fellow artist. introduced Wilson to Ian Fleming. Fleming was a Printmaking in Britain had undergone a revival Glasgow artist with a keen interest in printmaking. at the turn of the 20th century. New printmaking From the mid 1920s Wilson travelled extensively methods had become popular, including to the continent. His first etching of Paris, Pont woodcutting and linoleum cuts, as well as new Neuf, 1925 (cat. 1) was completed when he was developments in the techniques of lithography and still working as a young apprentice with James monotype. The founding of the Society of Painter- Ballantine. Later trips to Germany in 1928 form the Etchers in 1880 was a driving force behind the basis of the works The Walls, Rothenburg (cat. 9) and 3 Rothenburg (cat. 8). Unlike Cameron, McBey and Whistler, who looked to French art for inspiration, Wilson’s main influence was art from Northern Europe, and his interest in the work of Durer and Breughel can be seen in works such as Der Klein Soldat, 1932 (cat. 18) Adam and Eve, 1932 (cat. 19) and in his heavily worked rural scenes. Whilst McBey and Whistler had a tendency to convey the quality of light through leaving the etching plate ‘blank’, and so to give the idea of space, Wilson responded differently.I nstead he often filled his etching plates completely, margin to margin. These dark, structural images reached their zenith in a series of plates made in Scotland in the mid 1930s. Of which Sutherland, 1934 (cat. 27) and West Highland Landscape, 1934 (cat. 28) are examples. Wilson moved to London in 1935 to study engraving at the Royal College of Art then returned to Edinburgh in 1937, moving into a studio at 57 Frederick Street. Wilson began to exhibit his watercolours at the Royal Scottish Academy from 1936, and this marked the slow turn of his attention to the difficulties and challenges which watercolour entailed. In Scottish painting there is a long tradition of major figures placing great emphasis on the Self Portrait, etching, 1937. importance of work on paper. This is perhaps best Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art seen in the work of ‘The Edinburgh School’. His contemporaries and close friends, Adam was a constant preoccupation throughout his life, Bruce Thomson, William Gillies, Anne Redpath and and he worked off and on for James Ballantine and William MacTaggart were all watercolour painters. Son right up until the mid 1940s. His work in etching It could be said that their influence swayed his and watercolour did not detract from his interest in priorities from etching toward painting. (A show of stained glass, but helped inform it and from 1938 intent was made when in 1947, he resigned from his Wilson started to receive commissions for stained post of Honorary Secretary at the Society of Artist glass windows with increasing regularity. The Printers). His watercolours from the late 1930s and necessity for new windows from bomb damaged 1940s focus on French travels, as well as locations churches, as well as memorial windows added to in Fife and Skye and bear close similarities with his Wilson’s workload, and enabled him to set up a Edinburgh School contemporaries. Stained glass stained glass studio in Belford Mews in 1947. Notable 4 5 commissions included windows for Canterbury they are wonderful images, do not compare to the Cathedral, St Giles in Edinburgh and John Knox original editions of the 1930s. He died in 1972. Memorial Church in Ottawa, Canada. Wilson was Fiona Pearson has documented a total of 138 very much at the heart of the revival of the stained different etchings from William Wilson, but a full glass movement and it is for this he is most notably catalogue raisonné has still be to be completed. remembered. Wilson heralded a new wave of printmaking in From the early 1950s Wilson began to lose his Scotland, not through developments of technique sight through complications with diabetes. A cruel but through a modern approach to design and hand to be dealt, but even more so for a man whose content. Whilst the previous generation, Cameron life was centred on the visual arts. His stained glass and McBey, had been primarily concerned with studio was carried on through close work between the documentation of landscape and atmospheric Wilson and his apprentice John Blyth who translated effect, Wilson’s interest lay in the structural qualities Wilson’s ideas into glass. But his work in etching of an image, often realised through architectural and watercolour had to come to an abrupt end. Even subjects; relishing the angular juxtapositions of roof, with his sight lost, Wilson still played an active role wall and landscape. Wilson’s draughtsmanship is in the artistic scene of Edinburgh, a governor of superb, his line as suggestive as Gill and his tonality the Edinburgh College of Art, as well as an active in a tradition that goes back to Samuel Palmer member of the Royal Scottish Academy and the and Rembrandt. His etchings are visually rich and Scottish Committee of the Arts Council (where suffused with atmosphere and represent a body of he championed up-and-coming artists, including work to match McBey and Cameron. Joan Eardley). His studio in Belford Mews was a Printmaking in Scotland is still thriving. Glasgow hotbed for intellectual discussion, and his interests and Edinburgh Print Studios are both producing ranged from art to music and current affairs. He was work from an array of notable artists. DCA in awarded an OBE to his services to art in 1961. Dundee, Peacock in Aberdeen, Graal Press too, From the late 1960s Wilson’s quality of life began on the outskirts of Edinburgh produce works from to decline, and he relinquished his membership Scottish artists such as Wilhelmina Barns-Graham to the Royal Scottish Academy to make way ‘for and Victoria Crowe. No single artist however, then someone who could take a more active part…’. Illness or since, has placed such importance on the power and blindness necessitated a move to Lancashire of a single image etched onto plate. For this we to live with his sister. At this time, in response to a are indebted to William Wilson, Scotland’s master family crisis, Wilson sanctioned new editions of printmaker. around twenty etchings. These, printed in the early 1970s, were not signed by the artist, and although TOMMY ZYW, THE SCOTTISH GALLERY William Wilson creating his stained glass window for Liverpool Cathedral, c.1946 6 1 Pont Neuf , 1925 etching, 18 x 23 cms signed lower right provenance The estate of Adam Bruce Thomson and thence by descent; impression in The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 7 8 2 Rue Couverte, Provins , 1926 etching, 15 x 18 cms titled lower left, signed lower right provenance The estate of Adam Bruce Thomson and thence by descent 9 3 Chauvigny , 1928

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