30. James Morrison, R.S.A., R.S.W. (born 1932) ‘Dunes’ signed and dated ‘Morrison 1969’ and signed and inscribed ‘James Morrison/ ‘Dunes’ on the backing board, pencil, ink, wash and bodycolour 7 ½ x 22 ¾ in. (19 x 57.8 cm.) Morrison studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1950-54, before moving to Montrose and joining the staff at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee in 1965. He left Dundee in 1987 to take an extended painting trip to Canada and to pursue a full-time career as a writer and presenter of art programmes, a career which he combined with his passion for painting. He is a true landscape painter and he draws his inspiration from the lush, farmland around his home in Angus and from the rugged wildness of west coast Assynt, Scotland. His paintings are of real places and his practice is to work out of doors, rapidly, and to use thinned oil paint and boards prepared with a non-absorbent ground. This enables him to capture the transitory nature of his subject with the marks made by his brush becoming patters of the earth, so strong is his hand. He exhibits his work annually both in Scotland and London.
68