Sam Bough 1822-1878

The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh presents an exhibition of Scottish artworks from the 17th through 21st centuries. Incorporating oil, watercolour, sculpture and printmaking, the exhibited works depict the sublime...

The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh presents Highlights, a exhibition of recently acquired works. Three centuries of Scottish art are represented through portraiture, landscapes and still lifes, from the 18th century portrait painter Allan Ramsay (1713-1784) to contemporary figurative painter Stephen Conroy (b.1964).

Works by the following artists are exhibited:

Allan Ramsay, Cosmo Alexander, John Clerk of Eldin, Alexander Nasmyth HRSA, Alexander Fraser Snr ARSA, William Clark of Greenock, Frederic Bourgeois de Mercey, Sir George Harvey PRSA, Sam Bough RSA RSW, James Paterson RSA RSW, George Henry RA RSA RSW, E A Walton RSA PRSW, Edward Atkinson Hornel, Harrington Mann, Keith Anderson RSW RWS ROI, James Cowie RSA, Eric Robertson, Sir William Gillies RA RSA PRSW, John Gardiner Crawford, and Stephen Conroy.

An exhibition of works on paper by Scottish artists over three centuries - watercolours, conté drawings, pen and ink sketches, pencil studies and pastels.

Included are works by Alexander Runciman, Sir David Wilkie, Sam Bough, Arthur Melville, E. A. Walton, Sir D. Y. Cameron, Sir Muirhead Bone, Robert Scott Irvine, Robert Henderson Blyth, Pat Douthwaite, Jack Knox, John Byrne, Ken Currie, Stephen Conroy, and more.

For centuries, artists have been inspired by the sea. A natural boundary, Scotland's coasts and seas are dramatic, varied, highly productive and often awe-inspiring. This exhibition looks at the varied...

An exhibition of watercolours and drawings of note from Scotish artists between 1772 and 1972.

Although not a native Scot - he was born in Carlisle - Sam Bough is one of the most influential figures in the development of nineteenth-century Scottish landscape painting. He was a largely self-taught artist: the early part of his career was spent painting theatrical sets in Manchester and Glasgow. From a young age, though, he travelled the British Isles and painted woodland, moorland, rivers and coastlines and always populated with the people that worked the land he had chosen as his subject. Slowly he extricated himself from theatre work and he and his wife, Bella, settled in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire at the edge of Cadzow Forest. Living nearby was fellow painter and friend, Alexander Fraser and together they comprehensively surveyed the ancient woodland. Cadzow was part of the great forest that stretched from Northumberland to the Clyde valley through which the wild Chillingham cattle roamed. The ancient oaks, the woodsmen, bark peelers, hunters and white cattle gave him with plentiful subject matter.

Bough dedicated himself to landscape painting and became adept at illustrating the fleeting effects of weather. He looked for weather that lent drama to a scene and to this end he would ask for forecasts from an Edinburgh fishmonger before moving quickly to the coast to record it. Bough settled in Edinburgh in 1855 and over the following two decades the coastlines of Fife and East Lothian and their picturesque fishing harbours provided him endless subject matter. He painted them being beaten by turbulent seas and in the calm of low tide lit with astonishing sunrises and sunsets.

Bough's balance of realism with the scenic make his pictures resonate with the viewer - the familiar and the extraordinary combined.