ALEXANDER CAMERON (SCOTTISH FL.1921-1951) §
A WET DAY KIRKWALL, FROM THE PEERIE SEA
£300
British and European Paintings
Auction: 24 November 2016 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Signed, inscribed on reverse, oil on board
Dimensions
25.5cm x 34cm (10in x 11.25in)
Footnote
Provenance:
Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh 1994
Note:
Painted circa 1910
The landscapes and wildlife of Orkney and Shetland have long been a magnetic draw for British artists.
Among the early topographical painters were artists such as Edward Dayes, who drew directly from nature and is best known for his influence on the young Turner.
Subsequent British Victorian genre painters such as Elias Bancroft were less interested in geology and raw nature than in the life of the Shetland islanders, in which they found a different form of Romanticism.
In the summer of 1885 Glasgow Boys James Guthrie and Arthur Melville travelled together to Orkney, probably to stay with the Clouston family of wealthy merchants, and produced some memorable works and a few years afterwards, the Edinburgh artist James Kinnear began to paint extensively on Orkney, as is shown in the two quintessential works on offer here.
It was only natural that Sir John Everett Millais's son Johnny (J.G.) would travel to the far north, in his case the Shetlands, in his endless pursuit of the wildlife of Britain, a fascination which he shared with his contemporary George Edward Lodge.
The fact that the Royal Navy was based in Scapa Flow during the Great War provided yet another incentive for other artists including John Lavery and the still underrated Muirhead Bone. And surely the most famous home grown Orcadian artist must be Stanley Cursiter, later Director of the National Galleries of Scotland and Painter in Scotland to the King.