Kirkcudbright’s reputation as an artists’ colony began with the Faed family of artists in the early 19th century. Five children of a millwright at Gatehouse of Fleet, the siblings took inspiration from their surroundings to produce paintings that were exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Scottish Academy most notably by John Faed (1819-1902) and his younger brother, Thomas Faed (1826-1900). It was a tradition continued in turn by the next generation. Across the following two hundred years Kirkcudbright and its surrounds became a favoured haunt of The Glasgow Boys, The Kirkcudbright School, and Scottish artists of the 1920s; and the town's artistic traditions remain strong today.

The Fine Art Society’s annual exhibition in Kirkcudbright plays its part, alongside local artists’ exhibitions and the recently opened Kirkcudbright Galleries. We are delighted to be showing the artworks of artists who lived or worked around Kirkcudbright, with this year marking our 43rd exhibition in Galloway, and our 6th at the Harbour Cottage Gallery. Established in 1957, the Harbour Cottage Gallery has shown local artists both during their lifetime and posthumously, and their names make for a roll call of painters that The Fine Art Society have exhibited in Galloway over the years.

The other principal artists' colonies in Great Britain of the same period - Newlyn, Staithes and St. Ives - are all, like Kirkcudbright, coastal towns with fishing fleets that give an ever changing scene. The proximity of the sea gives a pellucid transparency, although the white light of St. Ives is very different from the softer light of the Solway. Some of the most enduring imagery of the Kirkcudbright School includes the woodlands and streams of Galloway, perhaps with cattle. It is dramatically and excitingly demonstrated in one of the most influential paintings of the School, George Henry's A Galloway Landscape, 1889. The gorgeous, and at the time shocking, oranges and reds of Henry's best period in the early 1890s were a response to the autumn colouring he found around Kirkcudbright. The land was not intensively farmed; ancient woodlands and small copses grow next to undulating fields with gorse covered knolls bounded by unkempt hedges, making for a landscape that is captivating.

The variety of landscape around Kirkcudbright, and the changing colours of the seasons, was a rich source for the painters. Most found it inspirational but there was the occasional dissenter: S. J. Peploe, writing to his wife in the late spring of 1931, complained of the 'lush grass and green trees - you can see nothing for leaves - no distance, nothing for the imagination'.

This 'green and golden province', as E. A. Taylor called Galloway, would not have attracted so many artists if it had not been relatively accessible. From 1864 under the aegis of the Glasgow and South Western Railway, Kirkcudbright had its own railway station. Edinburgh and Glasgow, the two cities where the major exhibitions and the art dealers were to be found, could be reached in a few hours. Peploe, again writing to his wife in 1931, from The Selkirk Arms Hotel, complained, 'I would go mad if I had to live here.' He did not have to because he made his frequent trips to Kirkcudbright from Edinburgh by train.