John Maclauchlan Milne 1885-1957

Purchased by the present owners from T. & R. Annan & Sons, Glasgow in 1962

Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1952, no. 235

The present view depicts the beauty spot of Glen Sannox on the isle of Arran, where Milne painted many of his most engaging works. He painted the white cottages at High Corrie, the boats in the bay and the blue waters of Sannox Bay but the views of the verdant hills of Glen Sannox have a wilder and more engaging beauty. In the present picture the hills are clad in the colours of spring with a blossoming thorn bush as the central focus of the composition amid pine forests and rolling hillsides of dead bracken. 

John Maclauchlan Milne was born in Edinburgh and spent time in his youth living in the wilderness of Canada where he worked as a cowboy and his love of open spaces and natural grandeur can only have been intensified by this experience. After returning to Britain Milne travelled to Paris and was greatly effected by the work of Cezanne, an enthusiasm he shared with his friend Samuel John Peploe. Milne is now quite justifiably regarded to be the fifth Colourist.

Milne settled in Corrie on Arran shortly before WWII and he remained there for the rest of his life, dying on the island in 1957.