Sir George Pirie RSA 1863-1946

The death of Sir George Pirie took place on the 13th Marchat his residence, Wardend, Torrance, Stirlingshire, at the age of eighty-two.
George Pirie was born at Campbeltown, son of thelate John Pirie, M.D., and at one time also intended to make medicine his profession. 

He was educated at Glasgow Academy and at Glasgow University, where he graduated M.A. before turning definitely to painting. He studied at the Slade School, London, and in Paris, under Boulanger Lefebre, and Fremiet. After a visit to the United States, he ment some years at the village of Midhurst in Surrey, before returning to Glasgow, and finally settled at Torrance.

During the first European War Sir George served with the R.A.M.C. from 1915 to 1919, retiring with the rank of Sergeant. He was elected to the Academy as Associate in 1913, Academician in 1923, and in 1933 was appointed President.

In 1937 he received the honour of Knighthood, his investiture by the King taking place in the Library of the Academyin the presence of Her Majesty the Queen and the members of Council. He resigned the Presidency in 1944. After his death it was revealed that the gift of £500 in 1940 had been a most generous expression of Sir George’s devotion to the Academy. 

As a young man Pirie came much in contact with the artists of the Glasgow School and exhibited with them in theirfirst exhibition in Glasgow ; in the Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 1890; and thereafter in their European exhibitions. But Sir George was never much in sympathy with the theories held by most of the group, his art from the beginning to the end being intimate, undecorative, sensitive, and elusively tender.

He limited his subject-matter almost entirely to domestic animals, and his contribution to the Diploma Collection, of an interior with two dogs, is typical ofhis later pictures in its reticence of colour and its ashen grey background. In addition to various Scottish galleries, examples of his works are to be found in Buffalo, St. Louis, Stuttgart, and Ghent. 

Even more clearly than usual, the work of our late President was a revelation of his personality and nothing need be added. Every member of the Academy regrets the disappearance of this quiet spirit.
He is survived by Lady Pirie, two sons, and one daughter.

RSA Obituary transcribed from the 1946 RSA Annual Report