Pollok Sinclair Nisbet ARSA 1848-1922

Mr. Pollok Sinclair Nisbet was a native of Edinburgh, where he was born in October 1848. The son of a painter and decorator well known amongst the leading Artists of his day, He was brought up in an Art atmosphere, whence, one would think, he might have passed naturally to the use of palette and brushes.

It was not, however, his father's intention the boy should have such an uneventful entry on the voyage of Art. Young Pollok was intended for the Law, and served for some time in a lawyer's office. But this uncongenial employment cannot have lasted long, for we find him at the age of sixteen or seventeen a pupil in the studio of Horatio McCulloch, the then most popular landscape painter in Scotland, and the last to have pupils and assistants, as had the Old Masters and some portraitists of more recent date.

In 1867, the year of McCulloch's death, Mr. Nisbet exhibited at the Academy three works, two of them "Howth Harbour, Sunset," and "Road scene, Howth," being from the neighbourhood of Dublin. For two or three years thereafter Highland and Lowland Scotland furnished his subjects.

Then with a visit to the Continent in 1872 Nisbet found his true vein among the sunlit cities and towns of Italy and Spain. Like many other painters, both French and British, the South inspired him. So much was he attracted by the new environment, that of the numerous pictures he contributed to the four following exhibitions all are of Italian or Spanish origin. 

In after years his southern work was mingled with the products of a visit to Belgium and the Netherlands, and with native landscapes; but every now and again he returns to the first attraction, and towards the later eighties Tunis and Tangiers furnished some of his most successful themes. A feature of Mr. Nisbet's treatment in these was the extraordinary deftness with which he introduced the figure groups which gave life and verve to his subjects.

Mr. Pollok Nisbet was elected Associate of the Academy in 1892, shortly after the provisions of the amended charter of the previous year had given a share in the work of the Academy to those of that rank. To the end Pollok Nisbet was a constant and interested attender of General Assemblies, and a strong supporter of the Academy's Exhibitions. 

Never of strong constitution, about two years ago Mr. Nisbet's health was seriously impaired, as the result of an accident, and latterly, he has lived in comparative retirement. By his death which took place on 28th December, a link with the earlier Art life of Edinburgh has been broken, and the Academy is the poorer by the loss of a loyal supporter and a true gentleman.

RSA Obituary, transcribed from the 1922 RSA Annual Report