James Morrison

For a Lady Remembered

About this artwork

For a Lady Remembered was painted in March 2007. The title refers to the artist’s wife, Dorothy, who accompanied him on his painting trips and died in January 2006, after more than fifty years of marriage. He had difficulty returning to painting; this is one of the earliest successful paintings after her death. The mountain on the horizon is Suilven, near Lochinver in the western Highlands of Scotland. Morrison painted outdoors, in front of the motif, but sometimes finished the paintings back in his studio. They are seldom ‘photographic’: he tended to shift landscape motifs about to suit the painting. Morrison discussed this painting in a film made about him at the very end of his life, Anthony Baxter’s James Morrison: Eye of the Storm (2021). Morrison said that this painting is not about the landscape, but is instead about his late wife: ‘You’ve got to paint your agony […] This is a portrait of grief.’

Updated June 2022

  • artist:
    James Morrison (1932 - 2020) Scottish
  • title:
    For a Lady Remembered
  • date created:
    2007
  • materials:
    Oil on board
  • measurements:
    100.00 x 150.00 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Presented by the Family of the Artist, 2021
  • accession number:
    GMA 5751
  • gallery:
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James Morrison

James Morrison