About this artwork

This small, dramatic watercolour was painted at Orotava on the north coast of Tenerife. Paterson’s sponging and smudging of the paint and abstraction of the rocks in the foreground is reminiscent of William Stott’s pastel The Fischerhorn Glacier. Paterson would also have known Stott’s series of atmospheric seascapes made off the Cumbrian coast in the 1890s. This watercolour dates from 1901, the year of Stott’s Memorial Exhibition in London. In 1905 Paterson moved to Edinburgh where he became Librarian of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1910, and in 1924 was appointed Secretary - a post he held until his death in 1932. In 1922, he succeeded his fellow Glasgow Boy, E.A. Walton, as President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour.

Updated before 2020

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James Paterson

James Paterson