To mark our 43rd exhibition in Galloway, and our 6th at the Harbour Cottage Gallery, The Fine Art Society are delighted to be showing the artworks of artists who lived or worked around Kirkcudbright, including an exhibition of work by the Glasgow Boys, for whom Kirkcudbright and its surrounds became a favoured haunt.
Thomas Faed ARSA RA (1826-1900), Fishing from the bridge, 1868; pencil and watercolour, 6 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches
When the Glasgow Boys rose to prominence in the 1880s, there was a sense of wonder at how a group of Scottish painters could hold such sway in the academies, salons and secessions of western Europe and North America. Often taking inspiration from Galloway’s landscape, the Glasgow Boys placed themselves at the forefront of British art, primed to take on an aesthetic which signalled the beginnings of modernism in Scotland. Our exhibition includes work by Sir James Guthrie, E A Hornel, E A Walton, James Paterson, Joseph Crawhall, Harrington Mann, and Arthur Melville.
Sir James Guthrie HRA PRSA HRSW (1859-1930), Boy with a straw, 1886, oil on canvas, 16 1/4 x 12 inches
Alongside this, we are showing works spanning two hundred years of Galloway’s artistic heritage, including Thomas Faed, William Stewart MacGeorge, Robert Burns, Edwin Alexander, and examples from the Kirkcudbright School that was at its peak in the 1920s: Cecile Walton, Mary Newbery Sturrock, and Lena Alexander. Complementing these are 20th century works by Joan Eardley, J D Fergusson, George Houston and Jack Knox.
Mary Newbery Sturrock (1892- 1985), Ipomoea, Agapanthus, G. Asclepiada, pencil and watercolour, 23 1/2 x 16 1/4 inches
Established in 1957, the Harbour Cottage Gallery has shown local artists both during their lifetime and posthumously, and their names make for a roll call of painters that The Fine Art Society have exhibited over the years.