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We made the shift to Temple just after the outbreak of war in 1939 and that was another important landmark for me as an artist. I needed to live in the landscape I was painting and Temple, situated within a mile or two of the fine, bare Moorfoot Hills and with the rich agricultural countryside of Midlothian within easy reach in the other direction – it was just what I wanted. I had the whole Border countryside full of subject matter open to me.
William Gillies
Sir William Gillies is still highly underrated in Modern British terms. Born in Haddington, he trained and taught at Edinburgh College of Art, and did the latter as principal. He was a great influence on many of the next generation of the Edinburgh School. He himself studied in Paris with Andre Lhote and absorbed, variously, the work of Munch, Matisse, Braque and Bonnard. Still life and landscape oils tend to be composed studio pieces of subtle complexity. Watercolours are lyrically observed renderings of the Scottish Borders based on decisive pencil or pen drawings or for larger works, executed alla prima. Gillies had a long and fruitful relationship with The Scottish Gallery which continues in the secondary market.
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