William Crozier (1893 – 1930) was a Scottish landscape painter. Born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, Crozier studied at

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 ...

and was a fellow student and friendly with

William Geissler William Hastie Geissler (1894 - 1963) was a Scottish artist known for his watercolours of the natural world. He was one of The Edinburgh School, and much of his earlier work came from sketching trips undertaken with other members of this group ...

William Gillies William Gillies (1865–1932) was a Scottish patriot and a socialist. He helped to form the Scots National League, which joined with other bodies to form the National Party of Scotland, which in turn evolved into the Scottish National Party (S ...

Anne Redpath Anne Redpath (1895–1965) was a Scottish artist whose vivid domestic still lifes are among her best-known works. Life Redpath's father was a tweed designer in the Scottish Borders. She saw a connection between his use of colour and her own. ...

, Adam Bruce Thomson and

William MacTaggart Sir William MacTaggart, (1903–1981) was a Scottish painter known for his landscapes of East Lothian, France, Norway and elsewhere. He is sometimes called William MacTaggart the Younger to distinguish him from his grandfather, the painter Willi ...

. These artists are all associated with The Edinburgh School. Assisted by a Carnegie travelling scholarship, together with Geissler and Gillies, Crozier studied under the

cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

painter André Lhote in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...

in 1923. In 1924 the three talented young painters pursued their journey to

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, where Crozier was particularly taken by the bright sunlight and resultant deep shadows, a quality which he later sought to capture in his work. This aspect of his painting and the cubist influences are evident in his 1927 painting, '' Edinburgh (from Salisbury Crags)''. The buildings are represented as simple geometric blocks with intense contrast between the sunlit facades and heavily shaded sides. Crozier suffered from

haemophilia Haemophilia, or hemophilia (), is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body's ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding. This results in people bleeding for a longer time after an injury, easy bruising, ...

and was affected by ill health for most of his life. He died aged only 37 after a fall in his studio. An exhibition of his work was given at the

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 ...

in Edinburgh in 1995

External links

William Crozier at the National Gallery of Scotland
* William Crozier (1893-1930) Publication of the National Galleries of Scotland for the Exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. 11 May - 9 July 1995. By Ann Simpson. Pale Green Press.

References

1893 births 1930 deaths Scottish landscape painters Cubist artists Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art Artists from Edinburgh Scottish watercolourists 20th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters 20th-century Scottish male artists {{UK-painter-19thC-stub