ANNE REDPATH OBE, RSA, ARA, RWA ( ) A DOZEN PAINTINGS November 2016

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3 ANNE REDPATH OBE, RSA, ARA, RWA ( ) A DOZEN PAINTINGS 2-26 November Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ TEL mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk

4 Introduction The modern artist is the model of independence, free from academic pressure, at liberty to address any subject, answerable only to their own inspiration and what William McTaggart called the good habit. Two of the finest of the last century were William Gillies and Anne Redpath. Neither had entirely conventional lives (conventionality being hardly a prerequisite for the life artistic) but both respected and nurtured their considerable talents through hard work and cussed determination. Gillies had a close relationship with his parents and sisters and a happy childhood in Haddington. He went through the First War and emerged with a quiet, steely resolve to look after his own, to set aside the horrors he had witnessed but to dance to no tune but his own instinct. His subject was the landscape of Scotland, his home patch of Midlothian and the Border country and that which he saw from a tent door in the Highlands and West coast. In the studio he could look out behind his cottage in Temple or set up a still life that always owed much to Georges Braque. His vast output but disinterest in the wider art world, beyond its impact on his beloved Art College, means that there is still a strong case for reassessment, for his work to be read alongside the senior figures of the Modern British School where it belongs. The recent show at the Edinburgh City Art Centre looked at his work alongside his friend and colleague Johnny Maxwell whose introspection and tiny surviving oeuvre could not be more different. But Gillies saw his value and admired the very particularity about his vision. The whimsy in Maxwell s subject work is in contrast with the rigour evident in Gillies still life but what is shared between all three (as well as McTaggart, Philipson and indeed the next generation of the Edinburgh School: Blackadder, Houston and Michie) is the emphasis on surface quality, strong drawing, harmonious colour and the freedom to embrace any subject matter. We are delighted to be able to include significant consignments from private collections, including from the late Roger Lloyd Pack, whose stunning still life, Christmas Paper, 1967, is one of the artist s most successful watercolour still life subjects and surely an influence on contemporary work by Elizabeth Blackadder. 2

5 Anne Redpath was more outward in her gaze, partly because of the necessity to make her way as a professional artist and mother of three young boys through the difficult War years, living back in the Borders after more than ten years in France. In its aftermath her star rose rapidly; the beginning of the Edinburgh International Festival and the wealth of exhibiting opportunities that emerged in the fifties in Edinburgh, London, and Bristol, as well as with the Arts Council of Great Britain, saw Redpath in the vanguard. She was the direct descendent of the Scottish Colourists, Peploe in particular, as she demonstrated her extraordinary facility, colour sense and unerring choice of subject. Latterly, her curiosity and adventure found painterly fulfilment in long trips to continental Europe, initially back to the France she knew so well from the twenties but then on to Spain, Venice, Portugal and the Canaries. These adventures were always put to good use with sketchbooks filled, objects found and brought back to the studio to enrich her iconography. In the later years she was able to respond to developments in international painting by moving towards an undefined picture space in which her flowers and vases merge into backgrounds built up with the vigour and élan of Nicolas de Stael or Antoni Tapies. In this exhibition we are able to include a group of newly discovered paintings from the studio of her son David Michie OBE, RSA and are grateful to the family for their support and kind assistance. Both painters were nurtured by a consistent relationship with The Scottish Gallery, the reputation of artists and Gallery, intimately intertwined. Gillies and Redpath have rightly been understood to form the twin pillars of the Edinburgh School, friends to so many talents in the next generation, artist exemplars of how anything was possible, that art mattered, that painting was far from dead and that the pursuit of beauty and significance was a worthwhile calling in a rapidly changing world. THE SCOTTISH GALLERY 3

6 The sitter in this portrait is thought to be Dr Elsie Bain, a friend who Redpath met while studying in Edinburgh. Elsie Bain later became the headmistress of Withington School in Manchester, where Redpath made a number of portraits of pupils. Elsie Bain is also the subject of the portrait of Girl in a Red Cloak, now in the collection of National Galleries of Scotland. 1 Portrait of a Woman, Knitting, c oil on board, 60.8 x 50.9 cms 4 provenance The Artist s Family

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8 2 Still Life with White Flowers and Fruit, c.1950 oil on board, 31.3 x 37.6 cms 6 provenance The Artist s Family

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10 3 Portrait of a Woman, c.1950 oil on board, 59 x 44 cms 8 provenance The Artist s Family

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12 4 Still Life with Patterns, c.1950 oil on board, 46.8 x 38 cms 10 provenance The Artist s Family

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14 A similar painting Pink House in Corsica is illustrated in Patrick Bourne s monograph on the artist. 5 The Pink House, Corsica, c.1954 oil on board, 50.6 x 61 cms signed lower left 12 provenance Melrose s Tea, c.1990; The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

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16 6 Canaries, c.1960 oil on board, 36 x 45 cms signed lower right 14 exhibited Anne Redpath, Fifty, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2015, cat. 24 provenance The Artist s Family

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18 7 Landscape in Canary Islands, c.1960 oil on board, 40 x 49 cms signed lower right 16 exhibited Anne Redpath, Worthing Art Gallery, Worthing, 1969, cat. 25 provenance The Artist s Family

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20 8 Anemones, c.1962 oil on panel, 38 x 51 cms signed lower left 18 exhibited Modern Masters I, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, July 2013, illus. p.55; Anne Redpath, Fifty, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2015, cat. 27 provenance Dr Robert A. Lillie Collection, cat. 165; Private Collection, Toronto

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22 9 Still Life, Abstract, c.1962 oil on board, 41 x 51 cms 20 provenance The Artist s Family

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24 10 Vase with Mixed Flowers, c.1962 oil on board, 35.6 x 28.5 cms 22 provenance The Artist s Family

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26 11 The White Azalea, c.1963 oil on canvas, 51 x 61 cms titled on label verso 24 exhibited Anne Redpath, Fifty, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 2015, cat. 32 provenance The Artist s Family

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28 This painting embodies the best qualities of her late period. A brilliant manipulation of paint, the palette limited, with pale greens and blue enlivening the dark and white composition. 12 Royananthus and Honesty, c.1964 oil on canvas, 50.8 x 50.8 cms signed lower left 26 exhibited Christmas Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1964 provenance Private Collection, London

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30 Anne Redpath OBE, RSA, ARA, RWA SELECTED BIOGRAPHY 1895 Born in Galasheils. Daughter of Thomas Redpath & Agnes Milne. Thomas was a Tweed designer Enrols in Edinburgh College of Art Exhibited with the Edinburgh Group. Travelling scholarship to Bruges, Paris, Florence and Siena Married James Michie a young architect and moved to St-Omer, France. Her sons Alistair and Lindsay were both born in St-Omer Moved with family to Cap Ferrat Birth of third son David. During her years in France she returned periodically with her sons to her parent s home in Hawick. Paintings exhibited at Hawick Arts Club, the RGI and the SSA The Michies returned to Scotland following the bankruptcy of Jim s employer. Elected a Professional Member of the SSA Moved to Beaconsfield Terrace following death of her father Elected President of the Scottish Society of Women Artists Visit to Skye with her friend the potter Katie Horsman. Began to exhibit in London at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Artists Moved to Mayfield Gardens, Edinburgh First solo exhibition with The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Painting in Spain First woman painter elected to the Royal Scottish Academy. Moved to London Road, Edinburgh Painting in Brittany, France (Concarneau and Treboul) Painting in Corsica Awarded an OBE and Doctor of Law by Edinburgh University Painting in the Canary Islands Elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in London Painting in Portugal Painting in Venice Died in Edinburgh. 28 Right: Anne Redpath at her London Street studio, c.1960

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32 Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition Anne Redpath: A Dozen Paintings 2-26 November 2016 Exhibition can be viewed online at ISBN: Designed by Photography by John McKenzie Printed by J Thomson Colour Printers All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ TEL mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk 30

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