William Stewart MacGeorge RSA 1861-1931

W.S. MacGeorge was born in Castle Douglas in 1861. From his earliest years he devoted himself to an artist’s career, rather a rare thing in Scotland, but MacGeorge, being rather delicate in youth, was allowed to follow his bent and occupy his time sketching at his own pleasure.

We get an early glimpse of him as a potential artist in “The Raiders,’ a Romance by S. R. Crockett, a contemporary and boyhood friend of Mac’s, to give the name by which he was familiarly known. There, in the character of young Jerry M‘Whirter—‘‘of the merry heart’’—who drew caricatures of his irate relative when the “old wives” visited Rathan Island, is our W.S. MacGeorge.

In 1880 he came to Edinburgh to study in the Royal Institution at the Mound, and from there proceeded to Antwerp, where he remained for three years, having as fellow-students E. A. Hornel, William Walls, R.S.A., and Peter Wishart, A.R.S.A. On his return from Antwerp he studied still further in the Royal Scottish Academy Life School.

In 1888 he was awarded the Keith Prize for the best picture by a student in the Academy’s Exhibition. From this time MacGeorge exhibited yearly in the Royal Scottish Academy and other exhibitions, his very personal and pleasant works—sunnywoods withchildren, flowerys wards, landscape and sea, with an occasional portrait.

For a long series of years he lived in Kirkcudbright in summer and in Edinburgh in winter. Most of his subjects were of Galloway, but he also painted in the Highlands, and in 1913 his works in the Academy were of Venice and Verona. Among his portraits may be mentioned that of John Faed, R.S.A., and the presentation portraits of the poet ‘‘Surfaceman”— Alexander Anderson—and Provost Wallace, Kirkcudbright, 1911.

Several of his pictures were entitled ‘‘Border Ballad.” One of those exhibited in the Academyin 1896 is now in the Mackelvie Gallery, Auckland, N. Z. Another represented MacGeorge in the Paris International of 1900. In 1910 the Scottish Modern Arts Association acquiredhis large Academy picture of that year of "Kirkcudbright" in twilight with fishers casting their nets.

In the Diploma Collection we are fortunate in possessing ‘‘Halloween,” surely MacGeorge’s masterpiece. It depicts a group of village children out for a frolic in the gloaming, carrying lanterns of hollowed turnips which cast glowing and dramatic lights on the laughing faces. Mr. MacGeorge was elected an Associate Member of the Scottish Academy in 1898 and an Academician in 1910.

Greatly loved by his fellow-artists and his large circle of friends, his death in November last made a vacancy in our midst which will not be filled. And the sadness of his passing was increased by the circumstances of his recent marriage and his removal to Gifford, where, in a house he had built among the fields and woods, he doubtless looked forward tostill more years of work at his beloved craft.

RSA Obituary transcribed from the 1931 RSA Annual Report