FINE ART

The Promotion of a Taste for Art : An Introduction to the Paisley Art Institute Collection

3 August 2024

Join Senior Specialist, Alice Strang, as she looks at the history of the Paisley Art Institute (PAI) reflected in the selected works on offer in A Taste for Art : Selected Works from The Paisley Art Institute Collection on 26th September 2024.

The founding Constitution of Paisley Art Institute (PAI) in 1876 declared that its purpose was "the encouragement of Art Studies and the promotion of a taste for Art, by such means as Monthly Conversazioni, Lectures and Exhibitions of Works of Art.’ Furthermore, the twelfth ‘Rule’ stated that "the Managing Committee may, in the event of surplus Funds, purchase Works of Art therewith."

A Taste for Art : Selected Works from The Paisley Art Institute Collection

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The ‘Conversazioni’ duly began on the last Thursday evening of every month, during which Members’ pictures were exhibited for Criticism and ‘Art topics’ were discussed. The PAI’s first Annual Exhibition was held the following year and has become Scotland’s third longest running showcase of artists’ work, after only those of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture (RSA), based in Edinburgh (held since 1827) and that of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts (held since 1861 and currently in abeyance). In its 148th year of existence, the PAI’s 135th Annual Exhibition was mounted at Glasgow Art Club in 2024.

A collection of fine art began to grow informally until 1913 when, under the Presidency of John Millar (PPAI 1895-1916), its first official acquisitions were recorded. They included William Allan’s Blind Harry Reciting the Deeds of Wallace (lot 29) and William Stewart’s The Penny Whistle (lot 93).

During the 1910s, James Begg (PPAI 1920-27), a leading figure amongst Paisley’s textile industries, presented works by three of the Glasgow Boys to the Institute. Thus E. A. Hornel’s Voices in the Woodlands (lot 75), John Lavery’s stunning Paisley Lawn Tennis Club (lot 64) and William Kennedy’s Market-place, Woolhampton (lot 80) joined the collection over a four year period from 1915. These paintings symbolised the strong relationship between ‘The Boys’ and the PAI, whose Annual Exhibitions provided vital early-career opportunities to the artists to display and sell their work.

LOT 75

EDWARD ATKINSON HORNEL (SCOTTISH 1864-1933)

VOICES IN THE WOODLAND
Signed and dated 1913, oil on canvas
122cm x 152cm (48in x 60in)
Provenance: Presented by James Begg, Esq., 1915.
£30,000-50,000 + fees

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It appears that sufficient ‘surplus Funds’ were to hand for the PAI to make its first listed purchases in 1915, namely a work on paper by James Garden Laing and a bronze by Alexander Proudfoot. In 1917, the Glasgow School of Art-trained artist Louise (Louisa) Ellen Perman presented The Gleaners (lot 40) by her recently deceased husband James Torrance, thereby becoming one of the PAI collection’s earliest known and many female benefactors.

Recovery after World War One led to renewed collecting vigour during the 1920s, not least with the decision in 1925 of the Institute’s Managing Committee to invest a sum ‘not exceeding £500’ in order to buy paintings. As a result, David Foggie’s Mother and Child (lot 34) was purchased the following year.

However, the most significant additions during the decade were works presented by Honorary President J. A. D. (James Anderson Dunlop) MacKean, a Paisley starch manufacturer, Burgh Treasurer, sportsman and collector. With his gifts of George Henry’s The Banks of Allan Water scheme (lots 76, 77 and 78) in 1922 and William York MacGregor’s Nethy Bridge (lot 5) two years later, the representation of the Glasgow Boys developed apace, whilst the Glasgow Girl Olive Carleton Smyth’s Bacchanale (lot 90) followed from MacKean in 1929. He also gifted David Forrester Wilson’s extraordinary Passing Day (lot 25) in 1923. MacKean’s great-nephew, Colin C. MacKean, is PAI’s current Treasurer.

Arguably, the ‘glory days’ of the PAI collection were during the 1930s, which saw a turn in the generations of Paisley’s great industrialists. The James Fulton Bequest of 1933 did much to transform the Institute’s holdings, not least in the form of works by the Glasgow Boys. The late manufacturer of Glenbright Starch, patron of the arts and Institute Honorary Committee member (1925-29), bequeathed works including no fewer than three paintings by Lavery (lots 65, 66 and 67), of whom he had been a long-term supporter, Arthur Melville’s The Mosque, Evening (lot 38), James Guthrie’s contemplative Firelight Reflections (lot 42) and William Kennedy’s romantic Reverie (lot 27).

LOT 25

DAVID FORRESTER WILSON R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1873-1950)

PASSING DAY
Signed, oil on canvas
102cm x 102cm (40in x 40in)
Provenance: Presented by J. A. D. McKean, Esq., 1923.
£10,000-15,000 + fees

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Following the death of her uncle, J. A. D. MacKean, Miss M. K. (Margaret Kathleen) Muir MacKean is believed to have inherited F. C. B. Cadell’s elegant Pink and Gold (lot 96) from him, which she presented to the PAI in 1932, thus introducing the Scottish Colourists to its holdings. In the same year, the Institute’s founding Secretary A. M. Macdougall gifted Joseph Noël Paton’s mesmerizing Michelangelo Sculpting the Statue of ‘Night’ (lot 64). This was surely a work of special resonance for an artists’ collective in which one of their greatest predecessors is depicted during the act of creation.

Coming a close second in importance to Fulton as a supporter of the collection during this period was Richard Edmiston, of Glasgow’s J. & R. Edmiston Auctioneers and Valuators, who was an Honorary Committee member between 1935 and 1937. Following his earlier presentation of John MacWhirter’s A Highland Drove Road (lot 68) in 1923, Edmiston went on to give further works including Cowan Dobson’s A Model (lot 94), James Kay’s A Continental Street Scene (lot 71) and Horatio McCulloch's My Heart is in the Highlands (lot 24), all in 1937. This trio alone represented Scottish art history from Victorian Scottish landscape to Scottish artists working abroad to contemporary portraiture.

LOT 63

SIR JOSEPH NOEL PATON R.S.A. (SCOTTISH 1821-1901)

MICHELANGELO SCULPTING THE STATUE OF 'NIGHT'
Oil on canvas, arched top
61cm x 76cm (24in x 36in)
Provenance: Presented by A. M. McDougall, Esq., 1932.
£30,000-50,000 + fees

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Indeed, at a time when the National Galleries of Scotland did not acquire work by living artists, the PAI was particularly enlightened in its support of its members and their peers by way of representing contemporary art in its collection. A roll call of many leading lights of its fellow artist-member organisations, such as the Royal Academy of Arts in London, RSA and Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours, were featured, including James Bell Anderson, George Clausen, Anna Dixon, George Houston, Archibald McGlashan, Fra Newbery and Robert Macaulay Stevenson.

In 1935, the first known loan out from the PAI collection to another institution was made when MacGregor’s Nethy Bridge (lot 5) was lent to Glasgow Art Club’s Exhibition of Works by Deceased Artist Members. This provided an opportunity for it to be seen beyond the town and was a public expression of the warm relationship between Institute and Club which has led to the recent joining of the futures of the two organisations. A significant group of loans was also made to the landmark Empire Exhibition, staged in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park in 1938, including Walton’s The Lone Tree (lot 22), David Gauld’s Farm Scene (lot 9) and Robert Macaulay Stevenson’s Wooded River Landscape at Dusk (lot 2).

“Over its 150 year history the Paisley Art Institute has maintained its original goal ‘to promote and support the work of Scottish artists'. After working through the challenges faced by the PAI this year it is with pleasure that the future of the PAI will be secured. The funds from this auction will help us create new awards and grants for artists, to inspire excellence and make new treasures.”
- Joe Hargan, PAI President

World War Two meant the temporary cessation of the Annual Exhibition between 1940 and 1947, but but the PAI's collection continued to develop. Stanley Cursiter’s Lobster Fishermen, Rousay (lot 97) was acquired by way of the W. G. Barbour Bequest in 1944, whilst James Guthrie’s key painting, The Stone-Breaker (lot 43) was presented by the seventh PPAI James Hally Brown of the starch manufacturers Brown & Polson, three years later. Miss Elizabeth S. Paterson left a bequest in 1949 which heralded the arrival of Glasgow Girl Stansmore Dean Stevenson’s beautiful The Breton Girl (lot 86).

The PAI collection did not only come to represent much of the best in Scottish art, but also contemporary Scottish collectors’ taste for the work of European artists. This interest was mainly shaped by Alexander Reid, ‘a prince among dealers’ during the period from 1889 until 1925, whose gallery La Société des Beaux-Arts was based in Glasgow. As ‘the second city of the British Empire’, the wealthy industrialists of the region were keen to collect art and turned to advisers like Reid to guide them in their purchases.

The Fulton Bequest represented this combination of collecting areas. In addition to the Scottish works already discussed, it featured Barbizon School artists such as Charles-François Daubigny and his Ferme près de Valmondois (lot 44) and Paysage au Bord de l’Oise, Île de Vaux (lot 45) as well as Théodore Rousseau’s Landscape (lot 46). The PAI collection also gained examples by the Hague School artists Frans Pieter Ter Meulen (Off to Pasture and Home from the Fields (lots 48 and 12) and Willem Maris’ Landscape with Cattle (lot 85), in addition to the French naturalist pastellist Léon Augustin L’Hermitte (Retour du Troupeau à la Ferme du Vivier and The Old Well, lots 79 and 84). The acquisition of the Dutch artist Nico Jungman’s watercolour Oude Delft (lot 59) may well be linked to the fact that he married the Scottish travel writer Beatrix Mackay.

LOT 46

THÉODORE ROUSSEAU (FRENCH 1812-1867)

LANDSCAPE
Signed with initials, oil on canvas
16.5cm x 20cm (6.5in x 8in)
Provenance: Fulton Bequest, 1933
£3,000-5,000 + fees

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As the PAI nears its 150th year in 2026, it is a dynamic artists’ collective, led by its 22nd President, Joe Hargan and run by artists and art lovers. It remains committed to its founding objectives of encouraging ‘Art Studies’ and promoting ‘a taste for Art’. The Institute also continues to honour the principle to champion, nurture and advocate for contemporary Scottish artists’ work, not least through ensuring the continuation of the PAI Annual Exhibition, first held in 1877. In 2024 terminology, it "aims to inspire excellence, encourage creativity and make new treasures."

Our thanks are due to Michael Durning (PPAI 2011-15) for his help with our research.

About the Paisley Art Institute

The Paisley Art Institute (PAI) was established in 1876 to promote and support the work of Scottish artists with the collection established in the early 20^th century. It is an arts collective, run by artists and art lovers. It holds an annual public art exhibition showing work by contemporary artists. The Glasgow Art Club recently hosted the 135th iteration of their annual exhibition.

The PAI has been resident as part of Paisley Museum and Art Gallery for some years but, following a refurbishment at the Museum, decided to relocate and assess what it can do with its assets to best serve its original objectives.

A decision has been made by the Trustees to retain a large proportion of the core collection while ensuring its future by offering a curated selection of works for sale at auction.

The core of the collection retained by the PAI will be shown at the Glasgow Art Club – as both a permanent feature in the space and rotating exhibition. Selected works will be offered at auction.

The PAI’s collection is formed of general, diploma, national drawing competition works. The Institute is retaining all the works of the two latter groups which have been acquired over the last 40 years with many of the artists still living. These contemporary works will be accompanied by a collection of historic works that bear a significant connection to the history of the PAI or The Glasgow Art Club.

ILLUSTRATED AT HEAD OF PAGE :
LOT 20 - EDWARD ARTHUR WALTON R.S.A., P.R.S.W., H.R.W.S. (SCOTTISH 1860-1922) | CHANCE ENCOUNTER | Signed, oil on canvas, 76cm x 73.5cm (30in x 29in) | Provenance: Presented by Mrs Fergus Morton and Mrs J. W. H. Gow, 1937.

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