Born in Kirkwall, Orkney, Stanley Cursiter was one of Scotland's most prolific twentieth-century painters as well as being a writer and curator. He was one of the first students of the newly-opened Edinburgh College of Art and played an important role in introducing Post-Impressionism and Futurism to Scotland. He was appointed Director of the National Galleries of Scotland in 1930 and King's Limner for Scotland in 1948. Cursiter initiated the campaign to create a Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
An Italian literary and artistic movement that began in 1909 led by the writer Filippo Tommasso Marinetti. It rejected the culture of the past and embraced new technology, emphasising speed and dynamism. It used the Cubist techniques of fragmentation and shifting viewpoints to represent these ideals in paint. Futurism also had a political aspect and was closely associated with Italian Fascism.