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Christian Jane (Chris) FergussonWilliam Stewart MacGeorgeJames PatersonWilliam Bruce Ellis RankenJankel AdlerFrancis Campbell Boileau CadellWilliam DaniellJames Faed JuniorJohn FaedSusan Bell FaedThe FaedsDavid GauldTom GourdieFrancis GroseGeorge HenryE. A. HornelAnna and Isobel HotchkisJames G (Tim) JeffsWilliam Miles JohnstonJessie M KingOskar KokoschkaJohn MaxwellHenry Joseph MouleCharles OppenheimerSamuel John PeploeWilliam RobsonCharles William StewartAlick Riddell SturrockE A TaylorJMW TurnerEdward Arthur WaltonArchie Sutter WattJemima WedderburnChristopher WhallGeorge Wright |
Edward Arthur WaltonA leading member of the Glasgow Boys, who painted in both England and Scotland, E A Walton came to know Galloway towards the end of his life. Whereas Guthrie, Henry and Hornel are associated with Kirkcudbright on Hornel's return to Scotland in 1885, Walton did no come to Galloway till the First World War.
Edward Arthur Walton was born in Renfrew near Glasgow in 1860. He spent some time at the Dusseldorf Academy before entering Glasgow School of Art in 1878. It was here that he became friendly with Guthrie and Crawhall and painted with them and others at Roseneath on the Clyde, Brig o'Turk in the Trossachs and Cockburnspath in Berwickshire and in Lincolnshire and Surrey. His skill as a painter of water colours earned him membership of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1885 and shortly after he became a member of the New English Art Club.
From 1894 to 1904 Walton lived in London, first in Kensington but then in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea where he was a friend and neighbour of Whistler. It was said that he was the only one of his acquaintances with whom the irascible Whistler never quarrelled. Here his neighbours also included Philip Wilson Steer and John Lavery. In the summer the Walton family went to Suffolk where they rented the Old Vicarage at Wenhaston, not far from Walberswick, where F Newbery and his family painted in the summer. Walton's daughter, Cecile and Newbery's daughted Mary, became close friends and later both developed strong links with Galloway. It was in Suffolk that Walton painted his celebrated portrait of a local game keeper's daughter, The Briony Wreath.
In 1904 Walton returned to Scotland and settled in Edinburgh, the same year that he became a Member of the Royal Scottish Academy. Although based in Edinburgh Walton travelled regularly in the UK and abroad. In 1914 he became president of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colour but war soon restricted his travel and it was then that he discovered Galloway, painting first about New Abbey and latterly at New Galloway and finally at Gatehouse of Fleet.
First and foremost a landscape painter, the atmosphere of a place was as important to Walton as the precise location. That is certainly the case with fine works such as The Gates of Galloway or The Smiddy at the Cross Roads, said to have been painted near Gatehouse. Figures and animals often feature, too, in Walton's landscapes. There is a timeless quality as the horsemen pause to gaze on the ancient ruins in his Sweetheart Abbey or in The Amber Pool, where the fisherman turns quietly towards the artist.
In 1921 E A Walton spent the summer in Anne Street, Gatehouse and was joined by his daughter Cecile and her husband Eric Robertson. Here he painted his last pictures, for he died the following spring. |
The Amber Pool
The Smithy at the Cross Roads
The Gates of Galloway
The White House, New Abbey
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