Willie Rodger RSA had studied at Glasgow School of Art under the Directorship of Percy Bliss, and famously failed his lino-cutting in his first year. Possessed of a stubborn tenacity Willie determined to master the medium, and by the time he died, on 3 November 2018 at the age of 88 years and six months to the day, he was lauded as the grand old man of Scottish Printmaking.
It was Kirkintilloch to the north-east of Glasgow, that Willie was born in a tenement flat which his parents rented. Apart from an unhappy few months working as a graphic visualiser for Mather & Crowther in London, Kirkintilloch was to remain Willie’s base for the rest of his life. 84 of those years were spent in the same house which his father had purchased in 1935, the attic of which Willie converted into his studio, and the garden of which he transformed into a visual masterpiece to rival the finest of his artworks.
Willie had already decided by the age of five that he would become an artist, and it was his Art Master at Lenzie Academy, Bob Allison, who provided the critical inspiration and encouragement which saw him enter Glasgow School of Art in 1948 on the strength of an interview and his portfolio [Willie had failed his Higher English and thus did nor secure his Leaving Certificate].
Trained by Miss Harriet Hanson, G.W. Lennox Patterson, and Ted Odling, Willie was awarded a minor bursary and a post-graduate year, and the strength of his draughtsmanship was already obvious to both tutors and fellow students alike.
He recognised a gap in the market as far as printmaking was concerned, and made his name as a relief printer, famously working without the use of a press [in 1963 he fell heir to the etching press of William Douglas Macleod, which graced Willie’s studio until 2017 when he gifted it to Edinburgh Printmakers for their new facility].
In the 1960s Willie was turned down for a post teaching mural painting at Edinburgh College of Art. His interviewer, one W;G; Gillies RSA, eased the disappointment by commenting positively on Willie’s portfolio of prints, and encouraging him to stick in with them.
Until he felt able to pursue his art full-time in 1987, Willie was a dedicated and highly-respected secondary school art teacher; first as special assistant to Bob Allison at Lenzie Academy, and latterly as Principal Teacher of Art at Clydebank High School where one of his staff, Ann Roger, was the muse and, later, the second wife of William Crosbie RSA.
Willie’s career saw him involved in the design of record sleeves, book jackets, postage stamps, aerogrammes, stained glass windows, and playing cards. He was in demand for commissions, undertaking interpretative and illustration work for Historic Scotland, and turned his hand too to painting and sculpture, being invited to exhibit at the Dunfermline International Sculpture Exhibition in 1967.
A quiet and unassuming man, Willie had a rare sense of humour and was an easy and likeable companioin. He enjoted a particularly fruitful relationship with Peacock Printmakers in Aberdeen where he earned the friendship of many including Ian Fleming RSA, and Arthur Watson PPRSA with whom he collaborated on many important projects, and whose wood and lino portrait, resplendent in one of the traditional fisherman’s sweaters knitted by Arthur’s mother, he produced.
His was a busy life marred only by the onset of Parkinsons which increasingly denied him the pleasure of working as he would have wished during the last four years of his life. It was at Glasgow School of Art in those still drab days after the end of the Second World War that Willie met Anne Henry, herself a gifted illustrator. They celebrated 60 years of married life just a few months before Willie died.
Willie was the first to acknowledge the huge debt he owned to Anne; wife, mother (to four), granny (to ten), homemaker, travel companion and, above all, his Muse.
RSA Obituary by Robin H Rodger. Transcribed from the RSA 2019 Annual Exhibition Catalogue
