James Paterson PRSW RSA RWS (21 August 1854 – 25 January 1932), was a Scottish landscape and portrait painter associated with The Glasgow Boys movement of artists. He is best known for his landscape paintings of Dumfriesshire, where he lived, at

Moniaive Moniaive ( 'monny-IVE'; gd, Am Moine Naomh, ''"The Holy Moor"'') is a village in the Parish of Glencairn, in Dumfries and Galloway, southwest Scotland. It stands on the Cairn and Dalwhat Waters, north-west of the town of Dumfries. Moniaive ha ...

from 1885 to 1905.

Life

James Paterson was born at Blantyre, near Glasgow on 21 August 1854, the eldest son of Andrew Paterson (1819-1907) and his wife Margaret Hunter (1817-1901). The Hunter family were sewed muslin manufacturers in Glasgow. When his father was orphaned at nineteen his uncle James Hunter appointed him a foreman in his warehouse and took him into partnership two years later at the early age of twenty-one. His father was a good watercolourist as well as one of the earliest amateur photographers in Scotland and most of his family developed artistic interests. James' brother William, born 1859, later became the owner of a gallery in Bond Street, London and his youngest brother

Alexander Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

, born 1862, became an architect. James studied at the Glasgow School of Art under Robert Greenlees. From 1877 he studied in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

under Louis Jacquesson de La Chevreuse (1839-1903) and

Jean-Paul Laurens Jean-Paul Laurens (; 28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921) was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style. Biography Laurens was born in Fourquevaux and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alexa ...

(1838-1921). A couple of years after returning to Scotland he married, in 1884, Eliza Grier Ferguson, daughter of an engineer, William Ferguson, and Janet Cooper. As a wedding present, Andrew Paterson gave the couple a cottage called Kilneiss, in Moniaive, Dumfriesshire, which was extensively modified and enlarged to designs by Glasgow architect Sir John James Burnet (1857-1938) and his brother Alexander Nisbet Paterson (1862-1947) in 1894. Paterson spent over 22 years in the area painting the Nithsdale and Ayrshire hills, the Solway Firth and the local river and burns, capturing the elusive colours and light inherent in the Scottish countryside. During this period he formed friendships with a group of artists - Sir James Guthrie (1859-1930), E. A. Walton (1860-1922), W. Y. McGregor (1855-1923), E. A. Hornel (1864-1933) and others - who came to be known collectively as 'The Glasgow Boys'. He moved to Edinburgh in 1906, and following his wife's death in 1910, took on more public responsibilities. He was elected to the

Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours (RSW) is a Scottish organisation of painters. The first preliminary meeting of the society took place in Glasgow on 21 December 1877 as a reaction to a lack of interest in watercolour art by ...

(RSW) in 1885, became an associate member of the

Royal Scottish Academy The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) is the country’s national academy of art. It promotes contemporary Scottish art. The Academy was founded in 1826 by eleven artists meeting in Edinburgh. Originally named the Scottish Academy, it became the ...

(ARSA) in 1896, and was awarded full membership of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) in 1910. He was a founder of the Edinburgh Society of Eight in 1912. He became President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1922 and served as Librarian of the Royal Scottish Academy between 1910 and 1924, and Secretary from 1924 until a few weeks before his death in January 1932. He is buried in

Dean Cemetery The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and on ...

just south of the huge Nasmyth monument in the north-east corner. His son James (Hamish) Constable Paterson (1890-1955) was also an artist and is buried with him.

Work

Work by Paterson was included in Glasgow Art Club's Memorial Exhibition in 1935, in memory of those of its members who had died since the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

.Glasgow Herald article 9 April 1935 ‘’Glasgow Art Club – Memorial Exhibition Opened’’
Retrieved 2011-08-17. A museum devoted to Paterson's life was founded by his granddaughter Anne Paterson Wallace, in the house where Paterson's cook Miss Black lived, in Moniaive. The collection was donated by the direct descendants of his family. It included the personal collection of Anne Paterson Wallace, with over one thousand photographic images by Paterson of his family, friends, and art works, together with his own records, correspondence, documents and letters from his later life in Edinburgh. The museum closed in 2003 and the archives were donated to the University of Glasgow Library in April 2003. File:James Paterson - Craigenputtock 1882.jpg, ''

Craigenputtock Craigenputtock (usually spelled by the Carlyles as Craigenputtoch) is an estate in Scotland where Thomas Carlyle lived from 1828 to 1834. He wrote several of his early works there, including ''Sartor Resartus''. The estate's name incorporate ...

'' (1882) File:James Paterson - The Last Turning 1885.jpg, ''The Last Turning'' (1885) File:James Paterson - Autumn In Glencairn 1887.jpg, ''Autumn in Glencairn'' (1887) File:James Paterson - Craigdarroch Water 1889.jpg, ''Craigdarroch Water'' (1889) File:James Paterson - Spring In Moniaive.jpg, ''Spring In

'' (1889) File:James Paterson - Kippford Waiting For The Tide 1913.jpg, ''

Kippford Kippford (; otherwise Scaur)
Gazetteer for Scotland is a small village along the University of Glasgow Library - The James Paterson Museum Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paterson, James 1854 births 1932 deaths 19th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters 20th-century Scottish painters People from Blantyre, South Lanarkshire Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art People associated with Edinburgh Scottish portrait painters Scottish watercolourists 19th-century Scottish male artists 20th-century Scottish male artists