Hugh Buchanan (artist)
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Hugh Buchanan is a Scottish watercolour painter, renowned for his detailed draughtsmanship and treatment of light and shadows in interiors, and for a sense of depth and space that is reminiscent of the work of Cotman and
Piranesi Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (; also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric ...
.


Early life

The son of Ian Buchanan, manager of
Scottish and Newcastle Scottish & Newcastle plc was a brewing company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, which expanded from its home base to become an international business with beer volumes growing almost tenfold. The company was listed on the London Stock Exc ...
Breweries, and Fiona Ross, a graduate of the
Central School of Art and Design The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...
, London, he was born in Edinburgh in 1958. After preparatory school at Belhaven Hill School,
Dunbar Dunbar () is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately east of Edinburgh and from the English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Dunbar is a former royal burgh, and gave its name to an ecc ...
, he went on to
Wellington College Wellington College may refer to: *Wellington College, Berkshire, an independent school in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England ** Wellington College International Shanghai ** Wellington College International Tianjin *Wellington College, Wellington, New Z ...
. In 1976 he entered the
Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...
, gaining his BA in Drawing and Painting in 1980.


Career

Subsequently he was granted travel scholarships to the Middle East and, later, North Italy and the Balkans. He has travelled regularly throughout Europe to visit and paint in watercolour buildings and interiors from the Renaissance to the Baroque. Over several years he worked on commissions for the
National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
and in 1987 was invited by the Prince of Wales to paint a series of interiors of Balmoral, later completing a further sequence at Highgrove in 1994. In 1988 he was commissioned by the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
to paint four interiors in the
Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...
. Hugh Buchanan’s paintings are in the Collections of the Queen, Queen Elizabeth the late Queen Mother, The Prince of Wales, the
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, Edinburgh City Art Centre, the
Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...
, the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
, the
University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...
, the
Bank of Scotland The Bank of Scotland plc (Scottish Gaelic: ''Banca na h-Alba'') is a commercial and clearing bank based in Scotland and is part of the Lloyds Banking Group, following the Bank of Scotland's implosion in 2008. The bank was established by th ...
, the
Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS; gd, Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba) is a major retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest (in England and Wales) and Ulster Bank ...
, the
Fleming Collection The Fleming Collection is a large private collection of Scottish art. Originally a corporate collection dominating the walls of the Flemings bank, it had a home in a gallery on Berkeley Square, central London, England from 2002 until the gallery's ...
,
Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...
, the
National Trust for Scotland The National Trust for Scotland for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, commonly known as the National Trust for Scotland ( gd, Urras Nàiseanta na h-Alba), is a Scottish conservation organisation. It is the largest membership organ ...
and the National Trust for England. In 2002 he was commissioned by the
House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
to paint the lying in state of the Queen Mother at the
Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...
. In 1987 he was one of Ten British Watercolourists shown at the Museo de Bellas Artes in
Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...
, Spain. In 1991 he exhibited at the
Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...
, New York. In November 1998 five works by Hugh Buchanan were included in the exhibition ''Princes as Patrons: The Art Collections of the Princes of Wales from the Renaissance to the Present Day'' shown at the National Museum and Gallery,
Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
. In 2005/6 his paintings featured in ''Watercolours and Drawings'' from the Collection of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, at the
Palace of Holyroodhouse The Palace of Holyroodhouse ( or ), commonly referred to as Holyrood Palace or Holyroodhouse, is the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. Located at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, at the opposite end to Edinburgh ...
, Edinburgh and the Queen’s Gallery, London. In 1994 Buchanan was given a major retrospective by the National Trust at
Petworth House Petworth House in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Sa ...
. His work has featured in two limited edition publications with accompanying texts by Peter Davidson: ''The Eloquence of Shadows'' (1994) and ''Winter Light'' (2010). In spring 2000 he was a major participant in ''The Art of Memory: contemporary painters in search of Marcel Proust'', a theme exhibition which with new contributions by the artists participating travelled to the National Theatre on the South Bank in January 2001. He took part in the theme exhibitions ''Roma'' in 2003, ''Lair of the Leopard'' (2005), ''Everyone Sang: a view of Siegfried Sassoon and his world'' (2006), ''РОДИНА: contemporary painters from the West winter in Russia'' (2008), ''That gong-tormented sea: contemporary painters pursue the idea and reality of Byzantium'' (2009) and ''Jumping for Joyce: Contemporary painters revel in the world of James Joyce'' (2013). Buchanan's exhibition of libraries, ''Enlightenment'', was shown at the
University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...
in 2009. In 2010 his exhibition ''Words and Deeds'' explored the archives at
Drumlanrig Drumlanrig (Scottish Gaelic: ''Druim Lannraig'') is a settlement in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, which is best known for nearby Drumlanrig Castle. The earliest record for Drumlanrig is from 1384, spelled ''Drumlangryg''. There are a number o ...
and
Traquair Traquair ( gd, Cille Bhrìghde) is a small village and civil parishes in Scotland, civil parish in the Scottish Borders; Counties of Scotland, until 1975 it was in the county of Peeblesshire. The village is situated on the B709 road south of Inn ...
in the Scottish borders. In 2013, ''The Esterhazy Archive'', paintings of documents at Forchtenstein south of Vienna, one of the properties of the Hungarian princely family
Esterházy The House of Esterházy, also spelled Eszterházy (), is a Hungarian noble family with origins in the Middle Ages. From the 17th century, the Esterházys were the greatest landowner magnates of the Kingdom of Hungary, during the time that it ...
, was shown at Summerhall in Edinburgh. In the same year he was invited by the
National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland (NLS) ( gd, Leabharlann Nàiseanta na h-Alba, sco, Naitional Leebrar o Scotland) is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. As one of the largest libraries in the ...
to paint a series of compositions of the John Murray Archive which were exhibited at the Library in 2015. In June 2017 he was invited by The Scottish Gallery to exhibit a major collection of watercolour paintings entitled ''New Town'' in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the New Town in Edinburgh. The exhibition is devoted to the interplay of light and space both in interiors and in the external architectural features of these Georgian houses. The catalogue of the exhibition contains essays by Duncan Macmillan, Adam Wilkinson, Director of
Edinburgh World Heritage Edinburgh World Heritage (EWH) is an independent charity in Edinburgh, Scotland established in 1999. It is tasked with conserving, enhancing and promoting Edinburgh's World Heritage Site " Old and New Towns of Edinburgh", which was designated in ...
, Ian Gow, Chief Curator Emeritus of the
National Trust for Scotland The National Trust for Scotland for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, commonly known as the National Trust for Scotland ( gd, Urras Nàiseanta na h-Alba), is a Scottish conservation organisation. It is the largest membership organ ...
and Peter Davidson of
Campion Hall Campion Hall is one of the five permanent private halls of the University of Oxford in England. It is run by the Society of Jesus and named after Edmund Campion, a martyr and fellow of St John's College, Oxford. The hall is located on Brewer St ...
, Oxford. In November 2018, the John Martin Gallery in London hosted an exhibition of his watercolours entitled ''Fragments of a Classical Twilight'', showing details of late 19th and early 20th century ''Beaux Arts'' buildings in London, in Philadelphia and in Rome, and of the play of light in their interiors.


Personal life

He lives with his wife and three children in East Lothian, not far from Edinburgh.


See also

* List of Scottish artists


References


External links


Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buchanan, Hugh People educated at Belhaven Hill School People educated at Wellington College, Berkshire 20th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters 21st-century Scottish painters 21st-century Scottish male artists Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art 1958 births Scottish landscape painters Living people 20th-century Scottish male artists