James Lewis Caw

“ FRASER, ALEXANDER (1827–1899) , landscape painter, son of Alexander George Fraser and his wife Janet W. Moir, was born at Woodcockdale, near Linlithgow, on 3 Nov. 1827. His father, a gentleman of private means, was an amateur of ability, and from him Fraser received some instruction in art before he entered the Trustees' Academy, Edinburgh, at the age of seventeen. But he learned more by working from nature and copying in the gallery and from his fellow-students than from masters. ”

“ An earnest student of nature, and from very early in his career a remarkably able craftsman, his work soon attracted attention; in 1858 he was elected associate, and four years later full member, of the Royal Scottish Academy. ”

“ He had been elected A.R.S.A. in 1840, but resigning when he received the London honour, he was made an honorary member at a later date. In recognition of his services as a British commissioner at the Paris Exposition of 1878 he was appointed chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He retired from the Royal Academy in 1890, exhibited there for the last time in the following year, and, having completed his last work in 1893, died in London on 16 June 1894.
He was a hard worker, and during his long career produced a great number of works. ”

“ GRAY, JOHN MILLER (1850–1894) , art critic and curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, was born in Edinburgh in 1850,his mother dying at his birth. His father, John Gray, who had retired from business, lost nearly all he had saved by the failure of the Western Bank, and Gray had to leave school somewhat early and enter the Commercial Bank. Devoting his leisure to the study of books and pictures and prints, he gradually made a beginning as a critic, writing principally for the 'Edinburgh Courant.' His monograph on George Manson [q. v.] ”

“ Some of his finest pictures belong to about this time, and in such as ‘The Ruby Ring’ (1853) ; ‘The Alchemist’ (1855) ; ‘Hudibras and Ralph visiting the Astrologer’ (1856) , an incident from Butler's famous work; ‘The Rosicrucians’ (1856) , one of his finest things in colour; and ‘The False Astrologer,’ the painter's interest in out-of-the-way subjects and his definite leaning to archæology are clearly visible. Many of them show much of the pre-Raphaelite spirit, and are remarkable for wonderfully perfect and detailed handling and rich and beautiful colour. ”

“ He had occupied a prominent position as a painter of subject pictures and portraits in Scotland for many years; but when in 1887 he was commissioned by the queen to paint 'The Jubilee Celebration in Westminster' he went to London, where he afterwards devoted himself principally to portraiture. ”

“ His desire was to be a painter, and, encouraged by John Pettie [q. v.] and others who believed in his gifts, he, in 1878, gave up law and took to art. He had no academic training to begin with, and the short time he spent in the studio of Carolus Duran at a later date was of little account ”

“ Many of his smaller pictures are masterly studies of such objects, and in nearly all of his principal pictures they figure as accessories. As a collector he is said to have combined the specific knowledge of the connoisseur with the practical and general discernment of the artist ”

“ He also produced a number of memorial statues, of which the marbles of Lords Clarendon and Somers, in the houses of parliament at Westminster, and of Sir George Grey, in Cape Town, and the bronze of Sir Robert Peel, in Manchester, may be named. ”