Girl Amongst Leaves by David Gauld RSA (1867-1936)

Girl Amongst Leaves

David Gauld RSA (1867-1936)

Oil on canvas

20 x 15 inches; 51 x 38 cm

Signed

Private Collection, England

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Exhibited: Edinburgh, The Fine Art Society at the English Speaking Union, 1968, no. 47 and 1969, no. 40 London, The Fine Art Society, The Glasgow School, 1970, no.7 London and Glasgow. The Fine Art Society, Let Glasgow Flourish, 1979, no.21 London, The Fine Art Society, Srping ’97, no.22

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Commentary by Kenneth McConkey

Like those of Walton, Gauld’s head studies of young women engage us through a screen of foliage. Broad, flat, lush leaves of maple and chestnut are sensuously painted and from within their cover, a face emerges. The painter simulates an encounter that is at once fleeting and for all time. The image is an evocative fragment, derived perhaps from one of his semi-Symbolist themes on The Eve of St Agnes, in which a group of maidens solemnly process through the woods, as in The Procession of St Agnes (Raeburn to Redpath, no.11). A face appears for a second and is gone.

Gauld’s work in this genre, along with that of Lavery, Kennedy, and Walton, was directed towards ‘Fair Women’ exhibitions in the nineties. These shows, at Laurie’s gallery in Glasgow, at the New Gallery in London and later at the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers took their theme from Tennyson’s ‘Dream of Fair Women’ and in the case of the New Gallery, were not restricted to British contemporary art. Painting, at the turn of the century should address beauty, and beauty resided in women and nature. A closely related head study passed through the Fine Art Society in the spring of 1984 (no.59). The model is thought to represent, Margaret, later Mrs David Gauld.

Bibliography

Billcliffe, Roger. The Glasgow Boys Edinburgh: Frances Lincoln, 2008; p. 238 (illus.).

Hardie, William. Scottish Painting London: Studio Vista, 1976; plate 72.

McConkey, Kenneth. Lavery and the Glasgow Boys. Exhibition Catalogue. Clandeboye, County Down: The Ava Gallery; Edinburgh: Bourne Fine Art; London: The Fine Art Society, 2010. No. 17.

Raeburn to Redpath. Exhibition Catalogue. Edinburgh: Bourne Fine Art, 2008.

Last modified 4 October 2011