David Gauld

The Fine Art Society, London, where acquired by the present owner in 2009

William Hardie, Scottish Painting, Studio Vista, London, 1976, illustrated pl. 72

Roger Billcliffe, The Glasgow Boys, John Murray, London, 1985, p. 267, illustrated pl. 248

Edinburgh, The Fine Art Society at the English Speaking Union, 100 years of Scottish Painting, 1968, no. 47

Edinburgh, The Fine Art Society at the English Speaking Union, 100 years of Scottish Painting, 1969, no 40

London, The Fine Art Society, The Glasgow School, 1970, no. 7

London and Glasgow, The Fine Art Society, Let Glasgow Flourish, 1979, no. 21

London, The Fine Art Society, Spring '97, 1997, no. 22

London, Bourne Fine Art and The Fine Art Society, Lavery and the Glasgow Boys, 2010, no. 17

Like those of fellow Glasgow Boy, Edward Arthur Walton, Gauld’s head studies of young women engage us through a screen of foliage. Broad, flat, lush leaves of maple and chestnut are sensuously painted and from within their cover, a face emerges. The painter simulates an encounter that is at once fleeting and for all time. The image is an evocative fragment, derived perhaps from one of his semi-Symbolist themes on The Eve of St Agnes, in which a group of maidens solemnly process through the woods, as in The Procession of St Agnes. A face appears for a second and is gone.

Gauld’s work in this genre, along with that of Lavery, Kennedy, and Walton, was directed towards ‘Fair Women’ exhibitions in the nineties. These shows, at Lawrie’s gallery in Glasgow, at the New Gallery in London and later at the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers took their theme from Tennyson’s ‘Dream of Fair Women’ and in the case of the New Gallery, were not restricted to British contemporary art. Painting, at the turn of the century should address beauty, and beauty resided in women and nature. A closely related head study passed through the Fine Art Society in the spring of 1984 (no.59). The model is thought to represent, Margaret, later Mrs David Gauld.

Kenneth McConkey 2010

Sotheby’s is grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his permission to reproduce the above text.