Elected ARSA: 21 March 1945

Elected RSA: 9 February 1949

John Maxwell died at his home Millbrooke, Dalbeattie on 3rd June 1962; he was born there in 1905. Educated at Dumfries Academy, he then entered the Edinburgh College of Art, where he distinguished himself as an outstanding draughtsman and a painter of rare sensibility. A travelling Scholarship took him to Paris where he studied under Leger and Ozenfant. He was employed for a time as an assistant to Gerald Moira, then Principal of the Edinburgh College of Art.

 

John Maxwell was the first Fellow under the Andrew Grant Scholarship Bequest and executed the beautiful mural at Niddrie School. He was later responsible for murals in the Restaurant of the Scottish Pavillion at the Glasgow Exhibition of 1938. He became a member of the staff of the Edinburgh College of Art but resigned in 1947 and returned to his house and garden in Dalbeattie, where he devoted himself to painting and to his garden, which he cultivated with great love.

 

He rejoined the College staff in 1951. He became an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1945 and a full member in 1949. John Maxwell endeared himself to a wife circle of friends and admirers, not only for his gentle and dedicated spirit, but for the wisdom and sincerity which illuminated his character, It was in his nature to be fastidious and a perfectionist and his output was small.

 

The qualities of his imagination were expressed in an exquisite choice of colours and forms in the lyrical poetry of his work which was admirably fused with the authentic and firmly established structural elements of his art. 

 

He is widely represented in private collections and the permanent collection of the Tate Gallery, London; the National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinbrugh; the Glasgow Art Gallery; the Aberdeen Art Gallery’ the National Gallery of New South Wales; the Arts Council of Great Britain (Edinburgh and London) and the Scottish Modern Arts Association.

 

The Royal Scottish Academy has also a number of his paintings. Dr. Harold Fletcher, Edinburgh, probably possesses the most extensive private collection of his works.

 

RSA Obituary, transcribed from the 1962 RSA Annual Report