Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell 1883-1937

Glasgow, Alex Reid and Son, where bought by Mr Ion Harrison and thence by descent

"Mr Cadell's pictures are of our soldiers and our sailors and in some cases of their girls. His method is of the simplest - a few bold lines, a few curves, a dash of colour. Swiftly done, and for that reason, clever; clever also for what is expressed with so little outlay of labour. If anyone imagines these pictures are easily done, let him experiment himself!" (Eastern Morning News, quoted in Tom Hewlitt, Cadell; The Life and Works of  Scottish Colourist 1883-1937, 1988, pg. 44)

The following two lots were made in preperation for the book Jack and Tommy; Twenty Drawings by F. C. B. Cadell published by Grant Richards Ltd. in 1916 which was received by the critics with great enthusiasm when it was published. In 1915 sixteen of the drawings were exhibited at the Society of Eight exhibition. 

"My father, Ion R. Harrison, was a Glasgow shipowner and first became interested in the work of the Scottish colourists in 1921. He admired their paintings and considered their work equally great, each in his own special way. Both Leslie Hunter and S.J. Peploe stayed at his home, but he got on particularly well with Cadell, a frequent visitor who sometimes stayed for two or three weeks on end.

During the 1914-18 War, Cadell served in the "Dandy Ninth" (the 9^th Royal Scots) as a private for nearly three years, refusing to take a commission, as he did not want to leave the small band of friends with whom he had joined the regiment. However his C.O. pointed out to Cadell that he was shirking responsibility so he at last reluctantly consented and was commissioned in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. When he was still a private on leave for a few days in London, he met up with one of his friends who asked him to dine with him that night. Cadell said he could not as he had a previous engagement. His friend somewhat sarcastically said, ‘Oh, I presume you are dining with a duke,’ to which Cadell replied, ‘On the contrary I am dining with two dukes.’ This was the case, as he was the guest of his relative the Duke of Argyll who was accompanied by the Duke of Northumberland, and they dined at one of the fashionable clubs in the West End of London. Cadell said it was amusing to see the uplifted eyebrows of the other member of the club when they saw a private wearing a very war-stained kilt going into dinner.

If one had a party of friends Cadell was always the centre of an animated group with his great fund of humour and his innumerable stories. He was a prince of entertainers, but he never required to be entertained himself.

My father remarked on the meticulous way in which he kept his palette. At the end of each day’s work he scraped every piece of paint off with his knife. He would then wash it thoroughly and having dried it would burnish it and hang it up so that one could almost see one’s face as in a mirror. Furthermore he was extremely well turned out and he always looked what he was - a gentleman.

He was very fond of his kilt of Campbell tartan. It was given to him by the Duke of Argyll and had belonged to a previous ancestor of the Duke’s family. Cadell claimed that his kilt was at least a hundred years old. Old and faded though it was it looked just right. With his kilt he usually wore a tweed jacket with a loud check which on most people would have looked ostentatious, but nevertheless seemed to blend with his flamboyant personality. Bunty claimed that nobody would ever guess that he was an artist by profession, nor indeed would they guess it from his personality. He never painted during the winter - that is to say from the end of September until the middle of March, as he asserted that no one could paint with any real sense of colour during the winter months in Scotland. For this reason in Who’s Who he described his recreation as ‘Bed and Billiards.’

The above reminiscences are excerpts from "As I Remember Them", a chapter written by my father in a book entitled "Three Scottish Colourists" by Dr T.J. Honeyman, then Director of Glasgow Art Gallery, published in 1950. My only recollection of Cadell consists of a series of ghost stories which he told me sitting on my father’s knee, aged four. His final story concerned an old lady whom he found unexpectedly knitting by the fireside in the bedroom which he occupied while visiting some ancient castle in Scotland. By that time he was used to Scottish ghosts so, Cadell said: "I crossed the room and sat down on her and she promptly disappeared".

Ronald Harrison, June 2004.