Sir William Gillies CBE RA RSA, Resipol, watercolour, Private Collection
William Gillies: Modernism and Nation features paintings, drawings and associated photographs, archives and objects from Gillies’ entire career. It is accompanied and inspired by a ground breaking new book on the artist, William Gillies: Modernism and Nation in British Art by Andrew McPherson. This tour was organised by the Royal Scottish Academy with support from Museums Galleries Scotland.
The exhibition seeks to challenge the idea that William Gillies was a ‘countryman’, and shows that there is much more to discover in his paintings. A more unified understanding of his art shows he embraced Modernist alternatives in his painting and unlocks previously overlooked meanings in his portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. Works that highlight this understanding form the focus of this exhibition.
Born in Haddington, Sir William George Gillies RSA (1898-1973) studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He served in the First World War and travelled to France and Italy after graduating, returning to the college as an accomplished artist and tutor, where he taught for more than forty years until his retirement as Principal in 1966.Throughout his career Gillies explored and developed different approaches to his painting. He experimented with a Cubist style after studying in Paris in 1923,and abstraction in the 1930s, eventually settling on a Modernist aesthetic characterised by an energetic and expressionistic application of paint. Gilles suffered particular personal traumas throughout his life, and Modernism gave him the creative freedom to address them through his art. Gillies is renowned for his landscape and still life paintings, but his portraiture also offers a fascinating insight into his life and his art. He is one of the best-known Scottish artists of the last century.
Additional teacher’s resources here
2 August – 27 September 2025
Art Galleries
This exhibition has been made possible by the provision of Government Indemnity. Inverness Museum & Art Gallery would like to thank HM Government for providing Government Indemnity and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England for arranging the indemnity.
