BORN in Glasgow in 1851, the painter of "The Kelp Harvest," "The Trawlers," and many another fine seascape, began life as a pattern-designer to a firm of calico printers in the city. Like a good many other West of Scotland artists, he prepared for a painter's career by taking some terms at Robert Greenlees' classes at the School of Art. He also joined the Glasgow Art Club in 1870, and having received considerable encouragement as an amateur painter of landscapes in water colour, he finally, in 1877, adopted the artist's profession. For a time he went to Paris, and under Bouguereau and Fleury acquired the mastery of technique which has marked all his work. Very soon he found his special aptitude, the painting of seascapes in oils. The life of harbours and of fisher folk has found in him a most sympathetic exponent, and along the shores of Fifeshire and the Moray Firth, of the Hebrides, Ayrshire, and Kintyre, he has made many a fine sea-scene his own. One of his best pictures was "The Clyde," now in a Colonial gallery, and other notable pictures, besides these already mentioned, have been his "Tarbert Harbour," "Tarbert Loch," and "The Harvest of the Poor." He first exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1883, when his picture, "Among the Trawlers," was purchased by the Art Union, and became one of its important prizes. Since then his work has found a place in the Salon, and most other important exhibitions in this country and on the continent. In 1884 he became a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours. He is a yachtsman of some experience, and possesses an excellent literary taste.

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