Lot 32
JAMES PATERSON R.S.W., R.S.A., R.W.S. (SCOTTISH 1854-1932)
RIVER CROSSING
Auction: 08 October 2026 from 10:00 BST
Description
Signed under the mount lower left, watercolour
Dimensions
36cm x 52cm (14.25in x 20.5in)
Provenance
The Artist's family.
Footnote
The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW) established in the late 1870’s as many artists including James Paterson, one of the Glasgow Boys, adopted the medium as a popular way of painting. Whilst at the time watercolour was considered a lesser medium or used by amateur artists more as a hobby, the Glasgow Boys such as Paterson and Arthur Melville (1855-1904) chose to challenge this idea and instead paint large, highly finished watercolours that could be exhibited alongside oil paintings.
Paterson, spent much of his career working en plein air in Moniaive, Dumfriesshire where he lived, and further afield painting in the Scottish Highlands, for example Glencairn (lot 33.) Watercolour as a medium enabled Paterson to capture the grey skies of the Scottish countryside through softening washes showing the atmospheric haze of the Scottish rain and the changing quality of light throughout the day. The Glasgow Boys felt that watercolour allowed them to capture real life through its fluid use and Paterson strongly believed in the ‘intimate study of nature's varied features’ and in giving a real rather than an idealised representation of it. On the death of E. A. Walton (1860-1922) Paterson became President of the RSW, a position which he held until his death.
