William Crawford ARSA 1825 -1869

William Crawford ARSA was born at Ayr in 1821. His art – education he received at the Trustees Academy and afterwards for some years he was one of its teachers.

He painted fancy subjects and portraits, but his best work was in chalk in which material, his portraits of ladies and children were very popular.

He died in 1869.

IX. The council have also to record the death, on the 1^st August, after a very short illness, of William Crawford, A.R.S.A.  He, like Mr Lauder, had been at one time a master in the School of Design, but for some years before his death he had given himself exclusively to the practice of his profession, in which, as is well known, he achieved considerable distinction.  While nearly all the departments of Figure-Painting came within his scope, his Portrait Pictures, and especially Drawings in Crayons, stood deservedly in popular estimation.  Cut off in the prime of life, these works will testify to Mr. Crawfoeds skill as an artist, while his friends will still continue to remember him as a man of no ordinary abilities and intelligence.

Forty-Second Annual Report of the Council of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, 1869