May Matthews
Managing Director, Scotland
Lot 43
John Smellie(British, 1886-1925)Sunlit Meadows, Callander
15 May 2024, 14:00 BST
Edinburgh£4,000 - £6,000
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Leo Webster
Senior Specialist
John Smellie (British, 1886-1925)
Sunlit Meadows, Callander
signed 'John Smellie' (lower right), titled to label (verso)
oil on canvas
71.2 x 91.5cm (28 1/16 x 36in).
signed 'John Smellie' (lower right), titled to label (verso)
oil on canvas
71.2 x 91.5cm (28 1/16 x 36in).
Footnotes
Exhibited
Probably, Glasgow, The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1925, no. 265.
Provenance
Private collection, UK; thence by descent.
Smellie's paintings are rare as he died aged just 39 in 1925, having only recently had the opportunity to devote himself to the life of a professional artist. Nonetheless, he exhibited extensively at the Royal Glasgow Institute, The Royal Scottish Academy and the Paisley Art Institute between 1909 and 1926, and in 1923 had been elected a member of the Glasgow Art Club.
The present work is likely to be his previous lost masterpiece of the same title Sunlight Meadows, Callander that was exhibited at the RGI in 1925. It had a price tag of £60, his highest price at the RGI that year.
Smellie's obituary in The Herald, July 1925, described him as a 'young artist of great ability and promise, a refined and sensitive colourist and master of technique...A native of Glasgow and well-known and highly-respected in art circles in the city...1925 he won the Glasgow Art Club prize for the best picture by a younger member of the club. In the RSA 1925 he had two pictures well hung and sold, of which the larger is the last picture he painted. All his later landscapes are full of atmosphere and light, and posses charm of harmonious colour and pleasing design.'