James Lewis Caw

“ Owing to failing health the father gave up business in Glasgow about 1844, and removing to Helensburgh, opened a library and bookshop there, and became post-master. Colin Hunter was thus brought up on the coast. On leaving school he spent four years in a shipping-office in Glasgow, and soon made the acquaintance of William Black, the novelist, who became a lifelong friend. From early youth his bias towards art was strong. He devoted all his leisure to sketching from nature, and after a little study at the local school of art he at twenty abandoned business to become a landscape-painter. ”

“ The parents removed to Edinburgh for good when Joseph was a baby. Having been educated at the Military Academy, Hill Street, Edinburgh, he was engaged for a time in mercantile pursuits in Leith and Gloucester, but eventually, after a successful career as a student in the Edinburgh School of Art and the life school of the Royal Scottish Academy (1877–80) , he devoted himself to painting as a profession. ”

“ Soon his oil pictures also expressed that sensitiveness to the sparkle and flicker of light and the brilliance and purity of colour, and that apprehension of the rhythmical movement and the emotional significance of nature, which were the essential qualities of his gift. ”

“ At first figure incidents of considerable importance were usually introduced, and his colour inclined to be black and his handling hard; but gradually the figures became accessory to the effect, his colour gained in freshness and his brush work in freedom. His best work was done during the last fifteen years of his life. While his principal pictures were in oils, he painted in water-colour also, and was a member of the Royal Scottish Water-Colour Society. ”

“ His leisure was devoted to art, and he commenced to paint in oils. In 1843 he entered the schools of the Royal Academy in London, where he began a lifelong friendship with (Sir) John Everett Millais [q. v. Suppl. I] , but the Academy training proved uncongenial, and Paton soon went north again. Senior to the Pre-Raphaehtes by a few years, Paton sympathised with their ideals, and anticipated some of their practice, but he did not share their ardour for reality, and his pictures, being more conventional both in subject and in style than theirs, more readily won popular approval. ”

“ Vallance commenced to exhibit at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1849, but it was not until 1857 that he took up art as a profession. His earlier work had been chiefly portraiture and genre. After 1870 he painted, principally in Wicklow, Connemara, and Galway, a series of pictures of Lish life and character, humorous in figure and incident, and fresh in landscape setting. ”

“ At this period Orchardson was neither a very regular attendant nor a very hard worker. It is said that he seldom finished a life-study; but when he did it was masterly and complete, and it evoked the applause of his fellows. He took an active part in the sketch club founded by Lauder's early pupils, and formed enduring friendships with the members, more especially with Tom Graham [q. v. Suppl. II] and John Pettie [q. v.] ”

“ These journeys supplied Melville with motives for a series of important drawings executed on a larger scale and more subtle and masterly in style and finer in colour than their predecessors. Venice in 1894 was his next fruitful venture. After 1897 he devoted more attention to oil painting. There, however, his work, although always interesting and powerful, was more experimental and less satisfying, and, in portraiture at least, tended to extravagance. ”

“ The charming portrait of Mrs. Orchardson (1875) ; the 'Master Baby'—the artist's wife and child (1886) ; the spirited rendering of himself standing before Ms easel, painted for the Uffizi in 1890 ; 'Sir Walter Gilbey' (1891) ; and 'H. B. Ferguson, Esq.' in the Dundee Gallery are splendid proofs of his skill in portraiture. Save 'Master Baby,' these were all three-quarter lengths ; but the full lengths of 'Sir David Stewart' (1896) , in his robes as lord provost of Aberdeen, and of 'Lord Peel' (1898) , when speaker of the House of Commons, are hardly less effective. ”

“ Ross was familiar with the best art on the Continent, travelling much in Italy, and he was a frequent exhibitor at some of the leading exhibitions abroad, his 'Serata Veneziana' winning a diploma of honour at Dresden in 1892. He was unmarried and resided at Edinburgh with his sisters. He died from the effects of a fall in his Edinburgh studio on 28 Sept. ”

“ In later years he rarely left Broomieknowe except for an annual summer visit to Kintyre. His Kberty-loving temperament ultimately alienated him from the Scottish Academy, of which he was latterly a member in little more than name, but he maintained his connection with the Royal Scottish Water Colour Society, and, always interested in younger contemporaries, he became a vice-president of the Society of Scottish Artists in 1898. ”

“ In early life he hunted, and at Westgate he became a devotee of tennis, for which he had an open court built. He was also a keen angler, especially with the dry fly, and latterly took to golf. Indoors he played billiards and talked with penetrating insight. Apart from the portrait of himself in the Uffizi, there are others by Tom Graham (seated half length, in Lady Orchardson's possession) , by J. H. Lorimer (in Scottish National Portrait Gallery) , and by his son, as well as a bronze bust by E. Onslow Ford [q. v. Suppl. II] , which belongs to Mrs. Joseph. ”

“ He died at 13 Portland Place, London, on 13 April 1910. Only a fortnight before he had completed, with an effort, the portrait of Lord Blyth, which appeared in the Academy after his death. He was buried at Westgate-on-Sea.
Orchardson married on 8 April 1873, at St. Mary Abbots, Kensington, Ellen, daughter of Charles Moxon of London ; she survived him with four sons and two daughters, and was granted a civil list pension of 80l. in 1912. The eldest son, Mr. C. M. Q. Orchardson, is an artist.
Of distinguished appearance, if of slight physique, Orchardson was very active and lithe. ”

“ Until 1870 he lived principally at Helensburgh, although from 1868 to 1872 he had a studio in Edinburgh. Meanwhile his work commenced to attract attention at the Royal Academy. He had first exhibited there in 1868. Four years later he went to London. After occupying studios in Langham Place and Carlton Hill, he removed in 1877 to Melbury Road, Kensington, where he built a fine house and studio. In 1873 the power and originahty of 'Trawlers waiting for Darkness' had evoked general admiration. ”

“ Henceforth his subjects were divided into incidents in the comedy of manners (sometimes gay but more often grave, and usually touched with a deUcate irony) and incidents from the careers of the great. The situation was always an epitomised expression of the interplay of character and circumstance rather than a rendering of a particular event, and the effect was highly dramatic. ”

“ His younger brother, Waller Hugh [q. v.] , was the landscape-painter, and one of his two sisters, Amelia (1820-1904) , who married David Octavius Hill [q. v.] , modelled with skill and executed several public statues of merit. At an early age the boy Joseph, who read widely, was impressed by the designs, as well as the poetry, of William Blake. By the time he was fourteen he had made a series of illustrations to the Bible. ”

“ GRAHAM, THOMAS ALEXANDER FERGUSON (1840–1906) , artist, born at Kirkwall on 27 Oct. 1840, was only son of Alexander Spears Graham, writer to the signet and crown chamberlain of Orkney (like his father before him) , by his wife Eliza Stirling. About 1850, some time after their father's death, Thomas and an only sister went to Edinburgh to live with their grandmother. ”

“ He enrolled himself as an 'artist.' The master of the Academy, Alexander Christie, A.R.S.A., taught ornament and design, and John Ballantyne, R.S.A., took the antique, life and colour classes. They were not inspiring teachers, but Orchardson made rapid progress. ”

“ His fine collection of art-objects and of arms and armour, which was admirably arranged in his Edinburgh house, 33 George Square, was purchased after his death, largely by public subscription, and placed in the Royal Scottish Museum, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. ”

“ Some time before his death Colin Hunter's health failed and his right hand was paralysed. He died at Lugar, Melbury Road, on 24 Sept. 1904, and was buried at Helensburgh. He married on 20 Nov. 1873, in Glasgow, Isabella, daughter of John H. Young, surgeon-dentist. His wife, with two sons (the elder of whom, Mr. J. Young Hunter, is an artist) and two daughters, survived him. Mrs. ”

“ While his earlier work was pseudo-classic in manner, his later shows a certain sensitiveness to modern developments in which realism, individuality, and style are combined. After a few years of failing health, he died unmarried in Edinburgh on 18 March 1904. ”

“ Excellent portraits of him by himself and by Orchardson and Pettie belong to his sister, and he served as model for these two artists on several occasions, notably in 'The First Cloud' by the former, and in 'The Jacobites' by the latter.
[Private information; personal knowledge; exhibition catalogues; Report of R.S.A. for 1907; Scotsman, 25 Dec. 1906; Sir W. Armstrong's Scottish Painters, 1887; J. L. Caw's Scottish Painting, 1908.] ”

“ He died unmarried while on a visit to Edinburgh on 24 Dec. 1906. 'Tom' Graham, whose winning manners and brilliant conversational powers made him a great favourite with his friends, was exceptionally handsome. ”