Adam Bruce Thomson and Anne Redpath

I shall be giving my lecture ‘Anne Redpath: Queen of Edinburgh‘ at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh on 16 August 2024. It is part of the talks programme accompanying their exhibition Adam Bruce Thomson: The Quiet Path, which runs until 6 October 2024.

From College to Academy

Thomson was one of Redpath’s tutors at Edinburgh College of Art. He taught there between 1910 and 1950, bar service during World War One and she trained there between 1913 and 1919. They were both central figures in the Scottish capital’s art scene during much of the twentieth century, not least as fellow Academicians of the Royal Scottish Academy. Thomson was elected an Associate member in 1937, rising to full rank in 1946; Redpath was made an ‘ARSA’ in 1947 and was the first female painter to become a full Academician on attaining that rank five years later.

Black and White Checks

Black and White Checks of 1952 is one of three paintings by Redpath in the collection of Museums & Galleries Edinburgh. The others are Causewayside, Edinburgh (seen above) and Shooting Booth, Brittany. Black and White Checks is not only a still-life set within an interior, the genre for which Redpath is perhaps most celebrated, but also demonstrates a more avant-garde approach to picture-making than she is usually credited with.

She plays masterfully with multiple perspectives and notions of space. The still-life objects, from lemon in compotier to decorated jug are presented on a ruched cloth, itself laid on the black and white checked-table cloth referred to in the title. They are viewed from above and from the side at the same time.

The sense of the space within which they exist is abruptly provided by the edge of the tablecloth, itself raised to the plane of the canvas, which gives way to the rug on the floor on which part of a chair can be seen – thus hinting at the unseen room beyond. A deft use of pattern with key colour highlights, particularly the use of yellow, makes this a highly sophisticated painting.

The Quiet Path

Dr Helen E. Scott, Curator of the Adam Bruce Thomson exhibition, has written an excellent book to accompany it. It has been published by Sansom & Company and is well worth a read. Scott and her colleagues have done a marvellous job in bringing this artist – central to modern Scottish art but modest – to the fore. Why not visit the exhibition before my talk and buy the book afterwards?!

For more about Anne Redpath, follow this link. You will find more about Adam Bruce Thomson here.