James Paterson RSA 1854-1932

James Paterson was born in Glasgow in 1854. Educated at the Western Academy and Glasgow University, after some years in business he devoted himself to Art, studying privately, at the School of Art, Glasgow, and afterwards in Paris.

His first exhibited picture was in the Royal Scottish Academy in the year 1874 when he was twenty. In 1875 he exhibited at the Glasgow Institute and in 1879 at the Royal Academy. He was an early member of the New English Art Club, the Society of Portrait Painters, and was associated with the Royal Society of British Artists in its great days under the Presidency of Whistler.

Dating from 1885 his exhibits in the Paris Salon cover a long period. In Germany he was well known; in Munich International he received a gold medal for his “Passing Storm,” and on its formation he became a corresponding member of the Munich Secession.

In Edinburgh he was an original member of the Society of Eight, and his very individual groups of work, vigorous and full of colour to the last year of his life, invariably commanded attention. He was a full member of the “old” Water Colour Society, and on the death of E. A. Walton became President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours, a position which he held until his death.

He was elected Associate member of the Academy in 1896, and a full member in 1910. Extremely interested in the affairs of the Academy and efficient in their discharge, he served at first as Librarian and then as Secretary, succeeding Dr. W. D. MacKay in 1924. His Diploma picture the “Nor’ Loch” is an excellent example of his romantic point of view in landscape.

“From the Castle to the Calton Hill,” a recent purchase by the Thorburn Ross Memorial Fund, is again of Edinburgh, and the collection of the Modern Arts Association contains yet another of these works based on its wonderful topography, “Edinburgh's Playground.” Glasgow, Liverpool, and New Zealand have also examples of his work.

Returning to Scotland from France as a young man with the naturalistic values which were then current in Paris, he became intimately associated with the group which afterwards attained international reputation as the Glasgow School - Guthrie, Hornel, Walton, Henry, and more particularly as a friend, W. Y. Macgregor.

This was undoubtedly the most formative influence in his art. Settling at Moniaive in Dumfriesshire, he preceded to carry out in a personal manner the theories which were the common property of the circle, and which he did in the direction of a more dramatic vision and a more brilliant palette than was general in the group. 

These characteristics of brightness and romance in his work, united with his great vitality and versatility, were throughout his life his most remarkable features. He worked equally in oil or water colour, pastels, or drawings, landscapes, portraits, and flowers; and his subjects were drawn from Scotland and England in general, Normandy and Touraine, Teneriffe and Corsica.

In literature he contributed to the Scottish Art Review, which he had helped to found, and he wrote and illustrated a monograph on Nithsdale. Interested also in music, he was a regular concert-goer and a member of the Bach Society. Altogether he was a man of wide cultural activities and of many friendships - the list of Societies to which he belongs gives a suggestion of his scope as an artist and of his acceptance by his fellows - and of an unfailing joie de vivre.

RSA Obituary, transcribed from the 1932 RSA Annual Report