Eric Robertson is a fascinating figure in Scottish Art, and his works very rarely come onto the market. He had a loose association with fellow artists and friends, who were organising group exhibitions in the Scottish Capital from 1919-1921.
These exhibitions gained considerable exposure ‘we find undoubted signs of energy in place of ennui,’ but also a level of notoriety, as another contemporary critic notes:
'Usually people look to the Edinburgh Group, as we know them, for something unique, rather than universal; for something of pagan brazenness rather than parlour propriety. Half of Edinburgh goes to Shandwick Place, secretly desiring to be righteously shocked, and the other half goes feeling deliciously uncertain it may be disappointed by not finding anything sufficiently shocking.’
Robertson was a vital member of the group, alongside his wife, the artist and illustrator Cecile Walton, and he drew some of the most scandal, for both his paintings, and his complicated personal life.
Originally a pupil of John Duncan, he appears to have fallen slightly out of favour with the older artist due to his suggestive, rather than classical, depiction of the nude.