EDINBURGH.- This December the Royal Scottish Academy will celebrate the life and work of Sir William George Gillies RSA (1898-1973) with an exhibition featuring paintings, drawings and associated photographs, archives and objects from across his career. Thanks to the Sir William Gillies Bequest in 1973, the Royal Scottish Academy holds the world’s most extensive collection of Gillies’ work.

Marking the 125th anniversary of Gillies' birth and the 50th anniversary of his death, Modernism and Nation will bring together a select group of Gillies’ paintings in still life, portraiture and landscape. Recognised masterpieces such as his Interior (1938), the late and sublime Nairn Beach, and his RSA Diploma Deposit Still Life with Yellow Jug and Striped Cloth will be joined by other significant works.

Throughout his career Gillies explored and developed different approaches to his painting, absorbing European Modernism and redirecting it through an art that was connected to his personal experiences. Experimenting with Cubism after studying in Paris, the revelatory discovery of Edvard Munch opened doors to further Modernist influences. The results emerged over the next 30 years and across the full range of his practice – in portraiture, still life and landscape – as he strove to find a voice through his painting. Gillies is recognised as one of the most influential Scottish artists of the twentieth century. As Principal of Edinburgh College of Art, he inspired generations of painters and shaped modern Scottish painting.

The exhibition is accompanied and inspired by William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art by Andrew McPherson, a new monograph on the artist published by Edinburgh University Press in partnership with the Royal Scottish Academy. Providing new evidence about the artist, Andrew McPherson shows Gillies to be a more complex, astonishing person previously acknowledged.

Gilles around the Nation: In parallel with the show in Edinburgh, the RSA will present an exhibition at the John Gray Centre, Haddington, from 8 December to 26 April 2024.

In addition to the exhibitions in Edinburgh and Haddington, Modernism and Nation will tour eight venues across Scotland throughout 2024 and 2025, supported by funding from Museums Galleries Scotland’s Museum Development Fund. The tour will visit Rozelle House, Ayr; Hawick Museum; Perth Art Gallery; Taigh Chearsabhagh, North Uist; Pier Arts Centre, Orkney; Inverness Art Gallery; Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries; and Kirkcudbright Galleries. Each venue will present a version of the exhibition with a unique focus.

Events

Book Launch and Signing
Tuesday 12 December 2023, 6 – 7.30pm
RSA Upper Galleries, Royal Scottish Academy
An opportunity to gain further insight into William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art by Andrew McPherson with a short talk by the author and book signing.

The RSA William Gillies Lecture
William Gillies Reborn
Tuesday 23 January 2024,6pm
Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, Royal Scottish Academy
This year the annual RSA William Gillies Lecture will focus on the life and work of the acclaimed artist himself. Exhibition curator Sandy Wood will introduce a discussion involving Alexander Moffat RSA, Joanna Soden HRSA, Murdo Macdonald HRSA and Andrew McPherson.

Sandy Wood, RSA’s Collections Curator says: ‘We are delighted to be presenting William Gillies: Modernism and Nation, an exhibition which repositions the life and art of one of Scotland’s modern masters. Gillies’ influence through generations of Scottish artists is palpable in the RSA’s own collection of modern and contemporary art. To have the opportunity to reveal the complexities of Gillies in a new light in the RSA galleries and all around Scotland befits the legacy of this great painter.’

Andrew McPherson says: ‘Gillies is challenging. He said little in public about his personal life and little about his paintings. Back in 2006, I was intrigued by a mismatch between the paintings themselves and what has long been the widely accepted “countryman” version of Gillies' life. But I was wholly unprepared for the extraordinary story that emerged and for the startling new evidence I stumbled across. There is so much more to find in these paintings once one acknowledges the full extent of the existential crisis that beset the first 50 years of Gillies' life and once one sees how his Modernism reconciled him to the extremes of human experience.’

Sir William George Gillies RSA (1898 – 1973)

Born in Haddington, Sir William Gillies RSA studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He travelled widely, returning to the college as an accomplished artist and tutor, where he taught for more than 40 years until his retirement from his position as Principal in 1966. He came under the influence of Cubism after studying in Paris in 1923, and experimented with various forms of European modernism from the 1930s, which he absorbed into his own distinctive style. The work of his mature period is characterised by an energetic and expressionistic application of paint. Gillies is renowned for his landscape and still life paintings, but his few painted portraits reveal some of the complexities of his personal life.

Royal Scottish Academy
William Gillies: Modernism and Nation
December 9th, 2023 - January 28th, 2024