William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art

'This is the book I've eagerly awaited for almost a half century .Andrew McPherson's study of Gillies is nothing less than a game-changer, presenting a new and very different story about one of Scotland's greatest 20th-century painters' - Alexander Moffat Shows how European modernism inspired Gillies to engage with universal issues of purpose, meaning and fate to produce idiomatic and unique works Reveals an artist who informs and challenges the constitutive narratives of modernism in Britain Shows how competition between Scottish and English nationalisms has shrouded Gillies in myth Combines social, political, cultural, and art history to explain the emergence of Gillies as artist and modernist Examines new biographical evidence on questions of sexuality, gender, mental and physical health, scepticism and faith Providing new evidence on the life and times of this Scottish painter, Andrew McPherson shows Gillies to be a modernist thinker. Presenting paintings never seen before, he reappraises his creative output, including the relationship of portraiture to still life, placing him firmly within not only a Scottish context but a British and European one too. McPherson has been researching the life, times and works of William Gillies for over twenty years. He has rethought the formative influence of his art of two World Wars, gender inequalities and the modernist crisis of meaning and belief.

Table of Contents:
Foreword & Preview Life and Death, Violence, Irony, Sanity and Sex The Countryman: Political Context Kailyard and Kin The Theatre of War College A Charter of Liberty: Early Years Bohemian Edinburgh Portraits Still Lifes of the 1930s Landscapes of the 1930s Nie Wieder Krieg: Wartime Landscapes Still Lifes 1939 - c1960 Oil Landscapes Last Years Politics, Patronage and later Landscapes on Paper

About the Author :
Andrew McPherson is Professor Emeritus in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. He has been researching the life, times and works of William Gillies for over twenty years. He is the author of (with Raab) Governing Education, Edinburgh University Press, 1988, and William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).

Review :
A deeply researched book that presents a radically fresh perspective on Gillies. Brilliant…reveals a radical and unfamiliar Gillies who has been hiding in plain sight … Andrew McPherson’s reassessment is wholly convincing. The received wisdom around Sir William Gillies as retiring and semi-reclusive, quietly absorbed in the business of creating genteel landscapes is forcefully challenged...dismantles the common perception of Gillies as a countryman painter, proposing instead that his work was deeply influenced by existential concerns and modernist ideas. Andrew McPherson…demonstrates, for the first time, the depth and importance of [Gillies’] engagement with modernism. A new William Gillies, man and artist, is revealed at the turn of every page. Published to celebrate both the 125th anniversary of his birth and the 50th of his death, this is a revelatory account of the life and art of the Scottish painter William George Gillies (1898-1973). Until now he has been considered a ruralist, a Neo-romantic and a traditionalist. This detailed biography dispels the myth of such interpretation and instead places his art in the modernist canon. Andrew McPherson analyses the tight relationship between Gillies’s art and his personal experience from the trauma of family history to the ‘theatre’ of war. He reveals how Gillies’s grief at the early death of his artist sister Emma became formalised and central to his art. A thorough and skilful analysis of selected art works identifies many signifiers of remembrance across time. This is a compelling book which reconsiders a modest and sensitive artist and so illuminates the nature of Scottish art in the central decades of the twentieth century. Andrew McPherson’s innovative research introduces us, with great empathy, to a new understanding of the life and work of the artist William Gillies. His approach reveals a hidden and complex family background, which nonetheless supported Gillies as he came to the fore of a largely unrecognised European modernism in Scotland, one that motivated the young Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Margaret Mellis and William Gear. Gillies’ work developed at a time when the general public were little exposed or disposed to modernism. McPherson’s generously illustrated book vividly describes the tensions of the social and creative climate Gillies worked within.