The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
A display of tru
A Brush with Colour, on at Kirkcaldy Galleries until November 4, is a demonstration of the genius of the Edinburgh School and its lasting influence on many generations of artists
The Edinburgh School’s lasting influence can be found the length and breadth of Britain.
Initially a group of former students of Edinburgh College of Art between the wars, the movement’s pioneers included William Crozier, Sir William Gillies, Anne Redpath, Adam Bruce Thomson and John Maxwell.
Their work – characterised by vivid and non-naturalistic colours – inspired a whole new wave of Scottish artists in the second half of the 20th Century, most notably Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, her husband John Houston and Redpath’s son David Michie.
Kirkcaldy Galleries’ latest exhibition pieces together the timeline of the Edinburgh School by delving into Fife Cultural Trust’s fine art collection and bringing to public eyes some of the movement’s key yet invariably rarelyseen works.
The exhibition’s curator Janice Crane is in no doubt about the contributors’ significance in Scottish art’s history.
“The National Collection Edinburgh has a good number in of paintings by all of these artists,” she says.
“Many are within living memory and Elizabeth Blackadder is still very much to the fore, so it’s almost too soon to say what the legacy of some of them is. What I do know is that the older generation went back to Edinburgh College of Art and became tutors and lecturers.
“They weren’t just artists in their own right, they were handing on traditions and passing on knowledge and encouraging new ways of working to the next generation who, in turn, passed things on to their students.”
Janice trawled Fife Cultural Trust’s