Sir William Gillies RA RSW PRSW 1898-1973
The early sixties were a fraught time for Gillies, balancing his own painting career with his position as Principal of the Edinburgh College of Art his sister dying in 1960 and then his mother in 1963. However, after his retirement in 1966, his painting took on a new lease of life.
In 1965, an exhibition of Giorgio Morandi was held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. His work was of great influence to Gillies, as it was to a number of artists in Scotland at that time. Another painter who Gillies admired was Massimo Campigli (1895-1971) whose fresco like handling Gillies emulates in the chalk-like application of paint, or as T. Elder Dickson put it, 'quaint Etrusan colour with almost miserly discretion lest he should defile the delicate image he is attempting to project'.
Gillies had always been enthusiastic about still life from college days and as his painting career progressed he strove towards a greater abstraction, 'In still life I felt able to go into almost pure abstraction; in landscape there is a limit beyond which content vanishes completely.'
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From the Window
Online Exhibition 23 Mar - 6 May 2023 EdinburghArtists have often depicted windows as portals between two realms: the real and the imagined, the intimate and the unfamiliar. It is a divide between a private place and a...Read more -
Winter in Edinburgh
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True to Nature
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Twenty Twenty One
30 Sep - 13 Nov 2021 EdinburghThe Fine Art Society presents an exhibition of work by Scottish artists, including: Allan Ramsay, Sir Henry Raeburn, John Knox, Sir David Wilkie, Patrick Nasmyth, David Roberts, Alexander Johnston, Sam...Read more -
Modern
18 Feb - 27 Mar 2021 Edinburgh20th century Scottish works of art, including Barbara Balmer, Robert Henderson Blyth, John Boyd, John Byrne, FCB Cadell, Ian Fleming, William Gillies, Jack Knox, William McCance, and John McLean.Read more -
Hang 4 //
Modern Scottish Pictures 1 - 19 Sep 2020 EdinburghCelebrating the variety of 20th century Scottish Art, this selection of works captures modern perspectives of Scottish identity. In the face of global societal and technological change, the artists’ focus...Read more -
Hang 3 //
Scottish Painting 1950-1980 19 Mar - 25 Apr 2020 EdinburghThe decades following WW2 saw artists take new forms of artistic expression. The order and rationalism that had preceded was rejected. Painting became more gestural and instinctive; this was achieved...Read more -
Modern Paintings 1940-1985
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Scottish Pictures of the Twentieth Century
15 Feb - 16 Mar 2013 EdinburghWith work by E A Hornel, Sir D Y Cameron, S J Peploe, Anne Redpath, Sir William Gillies, A R Sturrock, William Wilson, Sir W O Hutchison, Alberto Morrocco, Robert...Read more -
Five Centuries of Scottish Portraiture
30 Jul - 3 Sep 2011 EdinburghPortraits are windows into the period in which in they were painted – not merely because they demonstrate the painting techniques of the time, the fashions of art or of...Read more -
Harvey to Houston
Scottish Painting 20 May - 18 Jun 2011 EdinburghThis exhibition included work by a number of important names in Scottish Art from the nineteenth and twentieth century; from the genre painter Sir George Harvey to the work of...Read more
