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Walter Geikie RSA (10 November 17951 August 1837) was a Scottish painter.
Extended biography
Some samples of his works
Walter Geikie RSA (10 November 17951 August 1837) was a Scottish painter.
Life
He was born inEdinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
on 10 November 1795. At the age of two, he had a "nervous fever" which left him deaf
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an Audiology, audiological condition. In this context it ...
. Through the careful attention of his father he obtained a good education. Before he had the advantage of the instruction of a master he had attained considerable proficiency in sketching both figures and landscapes from nature, and in 1812 he was admitted into the drawing academy of the board of Scottish manufactures. He first exhibited in 1815, and was elected an associate 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 ...
in 1831, and a fellow in 1834.
In the 1830s Walter was living with his father, Archibald Geikie, a hairdresser and perfumer, at 2 Drummond Street in the south side of the city.
Owing to his want of feeling for color, Geikie was not a successful painter in oils, but he sketched in India ink with great truth and humor the scenes and characters of Scottish lower-class life in his native city. A series of etchings which exhibit very high excellence were published by him in 1829-1831 and a collection of eighty-one of these was republished posthumously in 1841, with a biographical introduction by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder of Fountainhall, 7th Baronet, FRSE FSA(Scot) LLD (13 August 178429 May 1848) was a Scottish author. He served as Secretary to the Board of Manufactures (1839–), on the Herring Fisheries Board, at the Royal Instituti ...
, Bart. Duncan Macmillan has described him as producing "images that are absolutely radical in their assertion of the inalienable nature of human dignity."Macmillan, Duncan (1980), ''Scotland and the Art of Nationalism'', in ''Cencrastus
''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...
'' No. 4, Winter 1980-81, pp. 33 - 35,
He died on 1 August 1837 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard
Greyfriars Kirkyard is the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located at the southern edge of the Old Town, adjacent to George Heriot's School. Burials have been taking place since the late 16th century, and a num ...
in Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, however a memorial was erected to his memory on the western boundary wall in 1996.
Further reading
* Campbell, Donald (2017), ''Heard in the Cougait: Poems by Donald Campbell from the engravings of Walter Geikie'', Grace Note Publications,External links
Extended biography
Some samples of his works
References
1795 births 1837 deaths Artists from Edinburgh 19th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters Royal Scottish Academicians Deaf people from Scotland Deaf artists Burials at Greyfriars Kirkyard 19th-century Scottish male artists {{Scotland-painter-stub