Roderick McEwen (12 March 1932 – 16 October 1982), known as Rory McEwen, was a Scottish artist and musician.

Early life and education

Roderick McEwen was the fourth of seven children born to Sir John Helias Finnie McEwen and Lady Bridget Mary, daughter of Sir Francis Oswald Lindley and great-granddaughter of botanist and illustrator John Lindley, who in 1840 was instrumental in saving The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew from destruction. McEwen was educated at the family home, Marchmont House in the Scottish Borders, by a French governess named Mademoiselle Philippe, and at Eton where he was taught by Wilfred Blunt who described him as "perhaps the most gifted artist to pass through my hands". After his

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders or 79th (The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders) Regiment of Foot was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1793. It amalgamated with the Seaforth Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs, The Duke of Al ...

, he gained a degree in English at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, where, among others, he became friends with

Karl Miller Karl Fergus Connor Miller FRSL (2 August 1931 – 24 September 2014) was a Scottish literary editor, critic and writer. Miller was born in the village of Loanhead, Midlothian, and was educated at the Royal High School of Edinburgh and Down ...

Dudley Moore Dudley Stuart John Moore CBE (19 April 193527 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer. Moore first came to prominence in the UK as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He was one of the four writ ...

Peter Cook Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishme ...

Jonathan Miller Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (21 July 1934 – 27 November 2019) was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 1 ...

and

Mark Boxer Charles Mark Edward Boxer (19 May 1931 – 20 July 1988) was a British magazine editor and social observer, and a political cartoonist and graphic portrait artist working under the pen-name ‘Marc’. Education Boxer was educated at Berkhamste ...

Career

In 1955 he wrote and performed in ''Between the Lines'' at the 1955

Cambridge Footlights Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University. History Footlights' inaugural ...

Revue production at the

Scala Theatre The Scala Theatre was a theatre in Charlotte Street, London, off Tottenham Court Road. The first theatre on the site opened in 1772, and the theatre was demolished in 1969, after being destroyed by fire. From 1865 to 1882, the theatre was kn ...

in London. In 1956, he travelled with his younger brother Alexander on the Cunarder ''Ascania'' to New York in search of Lead Belly's widow, Martha. When they found her she was so impressed by their understanding of, and skill at, playing her late husband's music, that she allowed Rory to play Lead Belly's custom-made 12-string Stella guitar, inspiring him to set off to find his own. The brothers played their way across America, cutting 'Scottish Songs and Ballads' for Smithsonian Folkways Records, and appearing on the coast-to-coast ''

Ed Sullivan Show ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' is an American television variety show that ran on CBS from June 20, 1948, to March 28, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the '' CBS Sunday Night ...

'' on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, twice, before returning home to Britain. By 1957, McEwen had become one of the leading lights in the post-war folksong revival, and was a regular on the daily BBC ''

Tonight Tonight may refer to: Television * ''Tonight'' (1957 TV programme), a 1957–1965 British current events television programme hosted by Cliff Michelmore that was broadcast on BBC * ''Tonight'' (1975 TV programme), a 1975–1979 British current ...

'' TV programme presented by

Cliff Michelmore Arthur Clifford Michelmore (11 December 1919 – 16 March 2016) was an English television presenter and producer. He is best known for the BBC television programme '' Tonight'', which he presented from 1957 to 1965. He also hosted the BBC's t ...

, writing and performing topical calypsos, whilst also working as the art director for the ''Spectator'' magazine. In the early 1960s, Rory and Alex hosted their own live shows to sell-out audiences at three successive Edinburgh Festivals. George Melly,

the Clancy Brothers The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumper sweaters and are widely credited with popu ...

Dave Swarbrick David Cyril Eric Swarbrick (5 April 1941 – 3 June 2016) was an English folk musician and singer-songwriter. His style has been copied or developed by almost every British and many world folk violin players who have followed him. He was ...

(later of Fairport Convention), Bob Davenport and the Americans Dick Farina and Carolyn Hester were among their guests. In 1963 and 1964, McEwen presented and performed on the folk and blues music programme ''Hullabaloo'' for commercial ATV television. Among his closest artist friends were

Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, l ...

Brice Marden Brice Marden (born October 15, 1938) is an American artist generally described as Minimalist, although his work may be hard to categorize. He lives and works in New York City; Tivoli, New York; Hydra, Greece; and Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania. Lif ...

Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as ...

, Robert Graham,

Kenneth Armitage William Kenneth Armitage (18 July 1916 – 22 January 2002) was a British sculptor known for his semi-abstract bronzes. Life Armitage was born in Leeds on July 18, 1916, the youngest of three children studied at the Leeds College of Art and t ...

Derek Boshier Derek Boshier (born 1937, in Portsmouth) is an English artist, among the first proponents of British pop art. Greene, Alison de Lima (2000). Texas: 150 Works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers. New York, New ...

and

David Novros David Ross Novros (born 1941), is an American artist. He is known for his minimalist geometric paintings, shaped canvases, and his use of color. He has also studied fresco painting extensively. Early life and education David Novros was born o ...

. Among close poet friends were the Portuguese Alberto de Lacerda and the Americans

Kenneth Koch Kenneth Koch ( ; 27 February 1925 – 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets includ ...

and

Ron Padgett Ron Padgett (born June 17, 1942, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American poet, essayist, fiction writer, translator, and a member of the New York School. ''Great Balls of Fire'', Padgett's first full-length collection of poems, was published in 1969. He ...

. It was typical of Rory McEwen's Scottish internationalism and versatility that, as an offshoot of his admiration for Indian music, George Harrison took sitar lessons from

Ravi Shankar Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known export of North In ...

in his house, and that he visited

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

in the last days before tourism.

Painting

From 1964, he decided to devote himself entirely to his career in visual art, his floral interest also finding expression in colour-refracting perspex sculpture and large abstract works in glass and steel using

perspex Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...

. In painting he forged his own interpretation of international minimalism, creating works in watercolour on velum, of flowers, leaves and vegetables. His work is in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, V&A,

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is part of the National Galleries of Scotland, which are based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The National Gallery of Modern Art houses the collection of modern and contemporary art dating from about 1900 to th ...

, Hunt Institute,

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

and MOMA, New York, among other collections. A previously unknown painting by McEwen of ''Fritillaria gibbosa'' was purchased by the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...

in 2018.

Influenced

Younger artists such as

Billy Connolly Sir William Connolly (born 24 November 1942) is a Scottish actor, retired comedian, artist, writer, musician, and presenter. He is sometimes known, especially in his homeland, by the Scots nickname the Big Yin ("the Big One"). Known for his ...

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards. As a teenager in t ...

, and

Eric Burdon Eric Victor Burdon (born 11 May 1941) is an English singer. He was previously the lead vocalist of R&B and rock band the Animals and funk band War. He is regarded as one of the British Invasion's most distinctive singers with his deep, pow ...

of the Animals have all said they were influenced by McEwen. McEwen, inspired by Leadbelly, was probably the first person to play 12-string acoustic guitar on TV in Britain.

Personal life

On 15 April 1958, Rory married debutante Romana von Hofmannsthal (d. 2014), a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. She was the daughter of Raimond von Hofmannsthal and Ava Alice Astor. Her grandparents were

Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. Early life Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-cl ...

Strauss Strauss, Strauß or Straus is a common Germanic surname. Outside Germany and Austria ''Strauß'' is always spelled ''Strauss'' (the letter " ß" is not used in the German-speaking part of Switzerland). In classical music, "Strauss" usually re ...

's librettist and founder of the

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Ama ...

, and Americans Ava Lowle Willing (who later became Lady Ribblesdale) and

John Jacob Astor IV John Jacob Astor IV (July 13, 1864 – April 15, 1912) was an American business magnate, real estate developer, investor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish–American War, and a prominent member of the Astor family. He died in the sink ...

, the multi-millionaire investor, inventor and writer, who drowned on the ''

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, Unit ...

''. Together, they were the parents of: * Flora Mary Alice McEwen (b. 1959), who married Anthony David Willard Mason. * Samantha Mary McEwen (b. 1960), an actress. * Christabel Mary McEwen (b. 1962), who married

Edward Lambton, 7th Earl of Durham Edward Lambton, 7th Earl of Durham (born 19 October 1961), is a British musician and a member of the band, 'Pearl, TN'. He is better known as Ned Lambton. Early life He was born in 1961, the youngest child and only son of Belinda Blew-Jones an ...

. They divorced in 1995 and in 2005 she married the musician Jools Holland. * Adam Hugo McEwen (b. 1965), an artist and curator. In the summer of 1982 McEwen was diagnosed with terminal cancer. On 16 October, suffering and in a state of despair, he threw himself under a train at

South Kensington tube station South Kensington is a London Underground station in the district of South Kensington, south west London. It is served by the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines. On the District and Circle lines it is between Gloucester Road and Sloane Squar ...

. He was 50.

Publications

*''Tulips and Tulipomania'', with Wilfred Blunt *''Old Carnations and Pinks'' with Oscar C. Moreton (and an introduction by Sacheverell Sitwell) *''The Auricula, Its History and Character'' with Oscar C. Moreton *''From the Air'' with Kenneth Koch *''Rory McEwen The Colours of Reality'' edited by Martyn Rix

Exhibitions

*1962: Durlacher Bros., New York *1964: :::Andre Weill Gallery, Paris :::The Hunt Botanical Library, Pittsburgh :::National Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh ::: Gateway Theatre, Edinburgh *1965: Durlacher Bros., New York *1966: Douglas and Foulis, Edinburgh *1967: :::Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh :::Byron Gallery, New York *1968: :::Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh :::Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf *1969: Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh *1970: Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh *1971: Scottish Arts Council *1972: :::Redfern Gallery, London :::Sonnabend Gallery, New York *1974: :::Redfern Gallery, London :::Tooth's Gallery, London *1975: Oxford Gallery, Oxford *1976: Redfern Gallery, London *1977: Oxford Gallery, Oxford *1978: ICA, London *1979: Taranman Gallery, London *1980: Nihonbash Gallery, Tokyo *1981: :::Redfern Gallery, London :::Fischer Fine Art. London *1982: :::Steampfli Gallery, New York :::Wave Hill, New York *1983: Hunt Institute, Pittsburgh *1984: Museum of Modern Art, New York *1988: Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh, and the Serpentine Gallery, London *2013: Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens, London

Discography

*Rory and Alex McEwen, ''Scottish Songs and Ballads'', Smithsonian Folkways Records 1957 *Rory and Alex McEwen and Isla Cameron, ''Folksong Jubilee'', His Master's Voice 1958 *Rory and Alex McEwen, and Carolyne and Dick Farina,''Four For Fun'', Waverly Records 1963 *Jim Dine and Rory McEwen, ''Songs, Poems and Prints'', Museum of Modern Art, New York 1969

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McEwen, Rory 1932 births 1982 suicides 20th-century Scottish musicians Scottish artists Scottish folk musicians Suicides in Kensington Younger sons of baronets 1982 deaths Suicides by train