Previously featured on this website, the Royal Scottish Academy’s touring exhibition William Gillies: Modernism and Nation is now at Perth Art Gallery, taking a fresh look at the significance of Sir William George Gillies RSA (1893-1973) in the history of 20th-century Scottish art. Featuring paintings, drawings and associated photographs, archives and objects from Gillies’ career, the exhibition places him firmly within the story of British Modernism. 

Born in Haddington, Gillies studied at Edinburgh College of Art. Like many of his Scottish artist contemporaries, he travelled widely, returning to the college after the first world war as an accomplished artist and tutor. He taught there for over 40 years and was hugely influential in inspiring countless artists to follow their passion for paint.

Throughout his career Gillies developed different approaches to his work. After experimenting with Cubism in Paris, the revelatory discovery of Edvard Munch in a 1931 exhibition opened further doors leading to expressionism, abstraction, symbolism and naive art. Over the following years he explored the full range of his painting – portraiture, still life and landscape – as he attempted to find a voice for his expression.