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JOHN MACLAUCHLAN MILNE1885 - 1957

MILNE CATAL_Layout 1 12/05/2010 02:30

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PORTLAND GALLERY

17 JUNE - 9 JULY 2010

Monday – Fr iday10 am – 6 pm

Front Cover Boats on the Seine (Pont Marie) Oil 14 x 18 ins Catalogue no.8

JOHN MACLAUCHLAN MILNE

A smaller selection of paintings will be exhibited at Bourne Fine Art

6 Dundas Street, Edinburgh from 14 - 27 July 2010

I am conscious of being at once a Scotsman and a European - when I’m not aware only of being a painter.

The Life and Works of

Fig.1

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1. Orchards, Normandie

Signed and dated 1918Watercolour 10 x 14 ins

A contemporary of The Colourists, John Maclauchlan Milne seems somehow to have been unfairly

overlooked in the history of Twentieth Century Scottish art. Since his death in 1957 there has been only

one public gallery that has held an exhibition of his work – in Dundee (his home city) in 1985. No commercial

gallery has had a show devoted to his work.

This is certainly not because he lacked patrons or official recognition in his life-time; far from it. William

Boyd, Matthew Justice, Tom Honeyman, Alexander Kieller, Gilbert Innes and James Tattersall were among

the most influential Scottish modern art collectors of the day and all acquired Milne’s work and hung it

alongside their French impressionist and post impressionist paintings. The Royal Scottish Academy showed

over ninety of his paintings over a forty-five year period and elected him as an academician in 1937. He

showed some work with Alexander Reid in Glasgow and then with the Lefevre Gallery in London in 1929.

The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, sold paintings of Milne’s in 1940s. Public collections also purchased his

work while he lived.

These collectors recognised Milne’s talent as a colourist, with his own distinctive French inspired style. So

what was it that consigned Milne to relative obscurity in the fifty years since his death? That he was a

relatively private man who preferred to sell directly from his studio and who mainly avoided official dealer

representation cannot have helped. There are no personal records of the paintings he made or to whom he

sold them; nor are there any meaningful records of the hugely influential fifteen or so years (1920-35) when

much of his time was spent in France. There are a few contemporary newspaper reviews which mention his

work but, overall, there is little information about Milne until he moved to Arran in the early 1940s. What

becomes clear from family and friends who knew him is that Milne was full of the joy of life, but was most

comfortable within a small social circle. He loved to recite poetry and sing, for it was then that he lost his

stutter. He had his own artistic vision which made Arran harbours and landscapes almost indistinguishable

from those he had so inspirationally portrayed in Provence and at St. Tropez in particular.

It was the almost Gauguin-esque view of Brodick Bay in Arran (cat.75) which first introduced me to Milne’s

work. I bought the painting in Glasgow in 1986; it was a favourite in our home for the next ten years. Once

introduced to Milne’s work, I sought it out thereafter. Coming across occasional paintings at auction never

provided enough work to mount a comprehensive exhibition, especially as the paintings which I bought

always found ready buyers. Finally, though, the urge to share Milne’s work with a much wider audience was

too much and this exhibition was organised to pay tribute to Milne and his work, and to show why a re-

evaluation of it is long overdue. It is mainly a loan exhibition and we are very grateful to those who have so

kindly agreed to allow us to show their paintings.

Tom Hewlett, Director, Portland Gallery

FOREWORD

54

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76

The development of art in Scotland from the late 19th-century onwards is regularly described in terms

of its connections with continental European art. The realism of the Glasgow School of the 1880s and

its relationship with the Hague School and the rural French artist colonies of the same period, the

friendships between Mackintosh and his Viennese contemporaries in the years around 1900, and the

links between Scottish painters and Post-Impressionism in Paris in the years before the First World War,

all demonstrate the flow of ideas between creative Scottish minds and their wider European

counterparts. The impact of painting as it developed in France at the beginning of the 20th century

was felt by numerous Scottish artists, but recent history has tended to emphasise the importance of a

few above others. John Maclauchlan Milne might be seen as one of those others, but an examination of

his career within the context of his Scottish contemporaries reveals a more complex history and a

considerable artistic talent.

Those Scottish artists who were in Paris in the years before 1910, such as Peploe and Fergusson, were

fortunate in witnessing the first exhibitions of Fauve painting, as it was developed by Matisse and Derain, as

well as being able to see important retrospective exhibitions of work by Gauguin, Cézanne and Van Gogh.

The subject matter of those French artists’ work - still life, landscape, the interior, figure painting (albeit

highly exotic in the case of Gauguin, or with an underlying symbolism in that of Van Gogh) - was not

unfamiliar, but their radical approach, which pushed art away from naturalistic representation and towards

a highly personal vision, represented an artistic freedom that left few painters of that time untouched.

Scottish artists whose careers began in the late 19th century were already accustomed to the idea of

travelling to the Continent, where they could benefit from study in the French atelier system and absorb

what they saw around them. For Milne, who was born in Fife in 1885 and is presumed to have been

taught by his father and uncle the artists Joseph Milne and William Watt Milne, travel to France would

have seemed an obvious step for one who, when aged eighteen, registered himself as ‘artist’. This

classification, however, was made by the young Milne not at a Paris academy, but instead on a ship

from Glasgow bound for Canada, where Milne arrived in 1903. It is unknown why Milne took this

independent step, other than he would have been among the wider Scottish exodus looking across the

Atlantic for a better future. Milne is reputed to have had a colourful time in Canada, working as a cowboy

while attempting to follow an artistic career, and facing the same sort of hardship that the young George

Leslie Hunter (1879-1931) experienced as an artist in California during the same years. Both,

coincidentally, returned permanently to Europe at approximately the same time, in 1907.

As a consequence of these years away during such a formative period in his career, Milne had little

opportunity to experience the sort of avant-garde art under development in France. By contrast, the

admittedly more senior John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961) and Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935) had by

then developed a close connection with the French capital, based there from 1907 and 1910 respectively,

and becoming part of the international community of artists who adopted a Fauve style. Both Fergusson’s

and Peploe’s new work made an impact in London and Edinburgh before the War, where it was almost

certainly seen by Milne, Hunter, and contemporaries such as F.C.B. Cadell (1883-1937) and Stanley Cursiter

(1887-1976). Cursiter’s particular interest in the most progressive art led to the inclusion of Picasso,

INTRODUCTION

2. Normandie

Signed and dated 1918Watercolour 14 x 10 ins

Provenance: Private collection


98

him to a stronger light that brought a sharper definition to the paintings he subsequently produced. The

French Mediterranean was then a regular haunt for Scottish artists, attracted by the climate, brilliant light

and modest cost of living. Mackintosh was working exclusively as a painter in quiet isolation on the

French/Spanish border at Port Vendres and Collioure and in the Pyrenees. The young James McIntosh

Patrick, Ian Fleming and William Wilson visited the area around Nimes and Avignon, producing outstanding

etchings. Anne Redpath was based at St Raphael from 1928 (where she was visited by William Crozier and

William MacTaggart), and Peploe, Fergusson, Cadell and Hunter (the latter described by Milne as a good

friend) all spent time working in the surrounding area throughout the 1920s. Milne’s art soon drew the

attention of the dealers Reid & Lefevre, whose founder Alexander Reid had given Peploe, Fergusson and

Hunter their first solo exhibitions before the War and who was instrumental in bringing those three artists’

work together with that of Cadell in a first joint exhibition, held in Paris in 1924.

By this time, Milne had already enjoyed some commercial success, especially in Dundee, where a number

of wealthy collectors including Alexander Keiller, Matthew Justice and William Boyd sought out the work

of French Post-Impressionists, as well as patronising leading local artists, including Milne. A solo

exhibition at Reid & Lefevre’s Glasgow gallery in 1928, newly run by Tom Honeyman (who later wrote

on Milne), was followed in 1929 by inclusion in a group show in the dealer’s London premises.

Dedicated to ‘The Younger Glasgow Group’, it is not clear why the east-coast based Milne and Crozier

found their way into company which included the Glasgow artists Robert Sivell, George Telfer Bear,

Archibald McGlashan, and James Cowie. For the gallery, it may have been a convenient label under

which to bring a group of younger, untested Scottish artists to the attention of a London audience,

most likely knowledgeable of the successes of the older Glasgow School. Those that visited may have

also identified a common trait among that group: while artists such as Cowie and Sivell were less

interested in recent French painting than those such as Crozier and Milne, all of those artists’

compositions were underpinned by a strong sense of design. Thus, although Milne’s paintings of the

south of France bear many of the hallmarks that must have attracted Reid and Honeyman to the work

of Cadell and Hunter from the same period, Milne’s art tends to emphasise the underlying solidity and

structure of the Mediterranean villages he commonly portrayed, rather than defining forms by means

of brilliant colour contrasts, as did Cadell, or, as was Hunter’s tendency, through a loose network of

expressively applied brushstrokes.

In 1930 Milne’s work was again shown in London, at the Independent Gallery, from which a painting

was acquired by the French state for the Musée de Luxembourg (further work by Hunter, Peploe and

Fergusson was acquired for the Luxembourg the following year). Shortly afterwards Milne’s trips to

France were curtailed by the worsening economic and political situation in Europe, and from around

1932 he remained based in Scotland, turning his attention to the Scottish landscape. Visits to the west

Highlands were frequently made in the company of his friend and patron the Dundonian businessman

Fred Lawson, whose adapted war ambulance served as a caravan. As with the younger artists William

Gillies and John Maxwell (who worked extensively across the west coast of Scotland during this period),

the dramatic highland scenery and rugged coastal landscape was well suited to Milne’s graphic ability

and gave fresh impetus to his art. Milne’s paintings of the coast at Morar (cat.46), the Lairig Ghru and

Matisse, Gauguin and the Italian Futurists among others at the 1913 Edinburgh exhibition of the Society

of Scottish Artists. By this time Milne, who had recently married and was based in Dundee, had just

begun to exhibit his work in Edinburgh; the titles of these early paintings however suggest a conservative

approach as yet untouched by modernist art. During the War years, when Milne served in France, he

found some time to paint; works such as Harbour Scene of 1916 (cat.4) demonstrates clearly that he

had inherited the painterly ability of his father, but had not yet moved on from a type of work

characteristic of the late 19th century, in its preoccupation with pastoral subjects carried out in an

impressionistic manner. In smaller studies judged to be of the same period however, Milne’s brushwork

becomes bolder, and although the studies’ distant perspective means they retain a sense of 19th-century

picturesque, they anticipate the subsequent loosening of his style.

In 1919 Milne received favourable reviews for two works he exhibited in Dundee showing the Belgian

and French countryside. By the following year he was in Paris, staying in the Rue des Quatre-Vents, near

the Luxembourg Gardens on the Left Bank. His work was immediately affected by his experience of that

city, reawakening to artistic life following occupation, and especially by a greater encounter with the

work of Cézanne, which ‘immediately conquered’ him. In the ensuing decade, much of Milne’s time

was spent in France, although he seems to have returned regularly to his studio base in Dundee. In 1922

it is likely that he took a studio in Lavardin on the Loire, and from around 1925 onwards was frequently

on the Côte d’Azur.

Milne’s work from those French years is often undated, and while we can be guided by his new

destinations in France by the titles of his works (which he regularly submitted to the annual exhibitions

in Glasgow and Edinburgh) it is problematic establishing a precise chronology that helps explain his

development and movement during this period. What is clear is the variety of approach he took to

differing formats of painting. The cool tones in his studies of Seine barges made in his first year in Paris

(cat.8 & 9) gives way to a dynamic application of brilliant colour in a smaller panel (cat.7) which features

the scene around the Eglise de la Madeleine in a manner reminiscent of Peploe’s and Fergusson’s bold

studies made in Paris ten years earlier. In the larger works of the same period, Milne practised a more

restrained technique, in which draughtsmanship is of equal importance to colour. The trees that are

such a characteristic of Paris’s public spaces were regularly utilized to bring a rhythm to play across the

surface of compositions such as the fashionable scene of a concert in the Tuilieries (cat.11). This device

also appeared in Milne’s French rural painting, for example Champs aux Chèvres (cat.17). In that work

the broader passages of muted, outlined colour and the subject’s quiet mood aligns it and others such

as Rooftops, Lavardin (cat.16) more closely with the art of Gauguin than with the expressiveness of the

Fauves. In the way that Gauguin and his associates were drawn to Pont Aven by its natural beauty and

their sense of its unspoilt simplicity, so the medieval village of Lavardin is likely to have appealed to

Milne. The pictures he executed there attest to the fact that modernist Scottish painting could be more

diverse than that of Peploe, Fergusson, Cadell and Hunter, whose colourist approach has come to typify

Scottish art of the period.

Milne’s move to the south coast of France from 1925, where he based himself at St Tropez, introduced


10

the more northerly Sutherland landscape (cat.54 and 55) have a muscular grandeur and lean mood

quite different from the intimacy and colourist tendency of his St Tropez scenes. Iona too became a

favourite painting ground, and on a trip to another of the southern Scottish islands, Arran, a meeting

with a resident, the younger Elsie MacKellar, decided Milne on a permanent move there. The picturesque

villages of Corrie and Sannox became regular subjects, but his most imposing statements take in the

fuller grandeur of the island. Milne understood the remarkable pictorial qualities of the Highland Scottish

landscape; its tendency to transform from cultivated farmland to brooding mountain scene within the

same frame offered a fitting challenge to painters such as Milne, who were able to reconcile and bring

together such variety in a unified and expressive design. Milne’s ability to do this in major compositions

such as Goatfell and Arran Croft (cat.58 and 59) leaves behind his association with francophile colourist

painting of the 1920s and results in work, which like the brooding mountainous landscapes of D.Y.

Cameron and fastidious detail in the oils of James McIntosh Patrick, resulted in paintings which deserve

wider recognition as some of the most striking representations of the Scottish scene produced in the

last century.

Philip Long, Senior Curator, National Galleries of Scotland THE PAINTINGS

Fig.2


1312

3. A Fife Landscape

Signed and dated 1920Oil 40 x 50 ins

Provenance: Purchased by Dundee Art Galleries and Museums (The Morris Trust Fund, 1924)

Reproduced with the kind permission of Dundee ArtGalleries and Museums (Dundee City Council)

4. Harbour Scene


Provenance: Mr & Mrs F. C. Lawson, DundeeBy descent

Constant themes in Milne's work are harbour and riversidescenes. As a young man, he painted the harbours on theEast Coast and the river Tay. In Paris he painted bargesunloading on the Seine, in the South of France he capturedthe harbour at St. Tropez where the wineboats loaded theirbarrels and then in the 1940s and '50s he painted thepeaceful little harbours at Corrie and Ferry Rock on Arranwhere the rowing boats would tranship provisions.

This painting appears to be dated 1916. The central boat hasthe letters KY for Kirckaldy which links it to the East Neukports between Fifeness and Leven along the Fife coast. Theharbour is likely to be Pittenweem or Anstruther as both werelively centres of activity in the early Twentieth Century.

This early painting shows Milne working in the traditionalmanner which he inherited from his father and uncle. The

subject of men at work (fisherman, shepherds, cow-herdsand mussel and kelp gatherers) is routed in the Dutchtradition as is the rich palette with dark shadows andgolden light.

The painting shows a degree of confidence in thepainterliness and boldness of brush-strokes but at thisstage in his career Milne had not found his artistic visionand his love of colour. The bravura of this painting is incontrast to his very early works which are more tentativeand delicately painted. Milne would have been familiarwith the work of William McTaggart and was in theprocess of absorbing a more expressive style. Milne'sstudy of children playing in rock pools from around thesame time (see cat. no.5) reinforce the impression thatboth McTaggart as well as Gemmell Hutchison influencedhis style and palette at this time.


1514

6. Breakers

SignedOil 10 x 14 ins


5. Children on the Shore




1716

7. Eglise de la Madeleine, Paris

SignedOil13 x 10 ins

Provenance: Sotheby's, August 1984Private collection

‘The Parisian street scenes of the immediate post-Armisticeperiod are touching in their evocation of an explosiverelease of optimism. Their high-keyed effervescence standsin strong contrast to the placid atmospheric works whichpreceded them’ ¹

Milne preferred to focus on landscape painting rather thanfigurative painting. Indeed there are no known portraits orpurely figurative studies by the artist. In busy Paris however,figures appeared more often in his paintings, althoughalways as part of the general composition rather than thecentral subject. By portraying the Parisians in bright red oryellow coats with blue hats and pink umbrellas, Milne wasable to introduce splashes of vivid colour which were pickedup in the café awnings and vehicles. In Paris Milne began toembrace the avante-garde love of exaggerated colour.These works were his first ‘colourist paintings’. The Concert,Jardin des Tuileries makes an interesting comparison withFergusson’s paintings of Paris concerts such as Café-Concertdes Ambassadeurs, 1907 (Tate, London).

The Paris oils appear to have been executed with rapidbrush-strokes suggesting they were likely to have beenpainted en pleine air. The small size of the panels from thisperiod would also imply Milne was walking around the city,visiting the famous sights of Montmartre, Notre-Dame,Place de la Concorde and the bridges of the Seine, carryinghis painting equipment with him.


1918

9. Unloading at a Paris Quay (Pont Marie)

Signed Oil 14 x 18 ins

Provenance: Phillips, July 1980Portland GalleryPrivate collection

8. Boats on the Seine (Pont Marie)


Provenance: Phillips, July 1980Portland GalleryPrivate collection


2120

11. Concert, Jardins des Tuileries, Paris


Provenance: Perth Museum and Art Gallery (donated by Miss M. D. Scott Murray and Mr P. Murray of Scone in 1972)

Reproduced by kind permission of Perth Museum and ArtGallery, Perth and Kinross Council

10. A Paris Street

Signed and dated 1922Oil15 x 18 ins

Provenance: The Property of Mrs Nancy Fraser Turner, her sale, Christie's, April, 1987

Exhibited: Possibly R.G.I. 1922, no.355 as Rue Royale, Paris


2322

13. A Boating Pond, Paris


Provenance: Acquired directly by a friend of the artist By descent

12. Fontaine du Palmier, Place du Chatelet, Paris


Provenance: Lyon & Turnbull, December 2008 Private collection


25

14. Paris



24


2726

15. Paysage, Lavardin


Provenance: Bourne Fine ArtThe Ellis Campbell Group

Exhibited: R.S.A. 1924

By 1922 Milne probably had a studio in the medievalvillage of Lavardin near Tours. It is not known how Milnediscovered the village but the beauty of Lavardin and thesurrounding countryside must have appealed to him. Thearchitecture of the village features a medieval chateaux, afourteenth century bridge and the eleventh centurychurch of Saint-Genest, which is seen in the backgroundof this painting. The village is set within the stunningscenery of the Loire valley.

In contrast to the small panels Milne had used in Paris, hestarted to paint on a larger scale in Lavardin. These biggerpaintings suggest that while in Lavardin Milne wasbecoming increasingly ambitious. A series ofphotographs, from about the same time, (probably takenfor a Dundee newspaper) show the artist posed at hiseasel, dressed impeccably with jacket, shirt and bow-tiewith a traditional white smock coat over the top, poisedas though about to apply the final brush-stroke to acanvas. The photographs are clearly set-up with thefinished painting on the easel is a large landscape ofLavardin already framed and clearly not a work inprogress (see fig. 2 & 8)


2928

17. Champs aux Chèvres


Provenance: James Gauldie, EdinburghBy descent

Reproduction with kind permission of the ScottishNational Gallery of Modern Art, on loan from a privatecollection in memory of John Lyon Gauldie (1914-1998)

16. Rooftops, Lavardin


Provenance: The artist’s familyBy descent


30

18. Provençal Landscape


Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist’s family circa 1970 by a private collector

‘Like Peploe, he saw Cézanne and was immediatelyconquered….Here in the Midi, Milne found himself and theimpact of this new experience stamped all his subsequentwork’.²

The mountains in the distance of this painting are formedof limestone, typical of Provence. The limestone Mont St.Victoire from the same region had been painted manytimes by Cézanne and in this painting one sees theinfluence of the French Impressionist on the young Scottishpainter.

When commenting on Milne’s work, contemporary artcritics repeatedly referred to the influence of Cézanne andMilne himself discussed his work in an interview (see page96). One of the critics implied that Cézanne had too strongan influence on Milne: “Maclauchlan Milne appears in thelight of a renegade, who betrays the old faith to burn incenseat the shrine of Cézanne. It seems almost impossible for amodern painter to work in Provence without dimming hispersonal vision by looking through Cézanne’s spectacles.” ³

The majority of critics, however, appreciated Cézanne'spositive influence: ‘A marked strength and freedom ofhandling has accompanied this new vision. Landscape is nolonger a pretty pattern on a flat canvas, but somethingmassive and solid, far receding and permeated withatmosphere…the quality of “volume” so difficult to express ishere seized upon with amazing success.’ 4


3332

19. St Tropez

SignedWatercolour and conté14 x 10 ins

Provenance: James TattersallBy descent

20. Provence


Provenance: James TattersallBy descent


3534

22. Boats Unloading, Côte d’Azur


Provenance: William BoydBy descent

21. Palm Trees, Côte d'Azur

SignedWatercolour and conté 15 x 11 ins

Provenance: Drambuie Collection; their sale Lyon and Turnbull, January 2006

Illustrated: Dustjacket illustration for V.S.Pritchett's 'At Home and Abroad', 1990, published by Chatto & Windus


3736

24. St Tropez


Provenance: Ian MacNicol, GlasgowPrivate collection

23. Provençal Town




3938

25. Cassis


Provenance: Portland GalleryPrivate collection

26. Town in Provence


Provenance: Lyon and Turnbull, 2007Private collection

‘Environment counts for much in the life of an artist, and herehe found himself one of a band of eager artists surrounded bycolourful landscape’. 5

The architectural design of the church tower seen in thispainting, with its long arched windows and almost flat rooftogether with the town wall suggests this is most likely a viewof St. Paul de Vence. Milne painted a number of views of thetown, which had been made famous by Chagall, Matisse andother artists. Hunter, with whom Milne became particularlyclose, had made St. Paul his base. Hunter rented a studioadjacent to the Auberge de la Colombe d'Or from where hewrote; 'I like this country very much and am sorry I did not comehere six years ago in place of going to Fife. I feel six months herewas worth six years there... This is a painter’s country’. 6


4140

28. Village Square, Provence


Provenance: Bonham’sPrivate collection

27. Interior


Provenance: Sotheby's 1998Private collection


4342

30. Balcony, South of France



29. Palms, St Tropez


Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist’s family circa 1970 by a private collector


4544

32. Haymaking


Provenance: Christie's, October 2003Private collection

31. Orchard and Sheep




4746

33. Café, South of France



Exhibited: Possibly R.G.I. 1925 as St Tropez Bar

‘It is difficult keeping pace with Mr Maclauchlan Milne’ wrotea Dundee newspaper. ‘A year ago he was painting Scottishfields with soft sunlight and mellow atmosphere. Then Parisseized him, and he gave us canvases splashed with vividcolour, radiating gaiety and the joy of life. Now he has drunk“a beaker full of the warm South” and has brought back fromthe azure shore pictures that palpitate with hot sunlight anddazzle with their audacious colour’.

The brilliance of the light, the blue shutters as well as thetype of trees suggest that this is a painting of a café inProvence. It is a delightful image of French café culture. Amaid walks a dog holding a parasol above her, people relaxin the shade of the café seeking respite from the hotProvençal sun, and a waiter appears carrying a tray. On theroad behind the café square a brightly coloured vehicle isparked and in the square a kiosk is pasted withadvertisements.

Milne has framed the bright sunlight in the centre of thescene with the darker colours of the trees and shadows. Thishas the effect of creating a balanced composition and helpslead the eye of the viewer into and through the scene.

This painting is reminiscent of Fergusson’s café paintings.The distinctive difference is that Milne’s reflect the morerelaxed atmosphere of southern France whereas Fergussonfamously captured the hustle and bustle of Parisian society.


4948

35. Wine Boats, St Tropez


Provenance: Acquired from the artist circa 1956 By descent

34. St Tropez Harbour




5150

36. Quayside, St Tropez


Provenance: Portland GalleryDavid Messum Fine ArtPrivate collection

37. Boats Unloading


Provenance: Acquired from the familyof the artist, circa 1970by a private collector

38. St Tropez




5352

40. Quayside, St Tropez


Provenance: Acquired directly from the artistBy descent

39. St Tropez


Provenance: Acquired by McLean Museum and Art Gallery (Stuart Anderson Caird Bequest, 1948)

Reproduced with kind permission of McLean Museum andArt Gallery, Inverclyde Council

‘To step from the cold rigours of a March [Dundee] into thestudio at No. 132 is to obtain a Riviera holiday without atedious journey in the Train Blue’ writes a journalist in the1920s. ‘St. Tropez, which was Mr Milne’s painting ground,pushes its bold promontory into the sea not far from Cannes,and all the glories of flowery land and purple sea gleam fromcanvases’.St. Tropez had already attracted a number of writers andartists by the time Milne arrived but it was still a sleepyharbour town (it wasn't until the 1950's that the town was

transformed, under the influence of the actress BrigitteBardot, into a playground for the rich and famous).

When painting the harbour at St. Tropez Milne usuallypositioned himself out on the pier looking back towards thetown with the hills and Citadel of St Tropez in the distance(as seen in this painting). The wine boats would arrive andMilne captured the brightly painted vessels loading theirbarrels at the sun-drenched pier.

St Tropez appears to be the first place at which Milnestayed on the Cote d'Azur. He continued to exhibitpaintings of the town at the R.S.A. and R.G.I. up until 1954.We do not know when Milne made his last trip to Francebut travel to the Côte d'Azur during the Second World Warwould have been extremely difficult. Whether the Frenchpaintings he exhibited in the latter years of his life wereworks that he’d kept in his studio, or whether they werenew works painted from memory is not known.


5554

41. Sunflowers



‘He is more interested in weaving the colour into an overallpattern of forms. He is not very interested in the texture ofthe flowers, but he is anxious to show how, in paint, theycan be transformed into a colourful design’.7

Milne first exhibited a still life painting at the R.G.I. andS.S.A. in 1927 and judging by the French titles (Fleurs,Nature Morte, Le Regime de Legumes) these paintingswere likely to have been executed in France. From theearthy colours and vigorous technique, one coulddeduce that Cézanne had more of an influence on theseworks than Milne’s contemporaries, Peploe, Hunter andCadell. Milne’s still life painting is rustic and earthy inthe same way that Cézanne painted ruddy oranges andearthenware pots on a kitchen table.

Milne’s work in this genre is also seemingly less arrangedthan either that of Cézanne, Peploe, Cadell and Hunter.Unlike the Colourists, he tended not to place the objectson artfully arranged drapes, rather they appear in theirnatural settings. The curtains in the background ofMilne’s paintings are genuinely hanging rather thandraped at an angle to best suit the composition.

In one of his more ambitious still life paintings (cat.no.47), Milne has included a mirror which reflects theinterior of the room. The window, chair and table arecleverly obscured so as to fade into the background.


5756

43. Vase of Roses on a Table



42. Roses




5958

45. Still Life with Tulips


Provenance: Matthew JusticeBy descent

44. Still Life with Blossom


Provenance: Private collectionPortland GalleryPrivate collection


6160

46. Sands of Morar


Provenance: The Royal Scottish Academy, 1937Presented by the artist as his Diploma work on his election as a full member of the R.S.A.

Reproduced with kind permission of the R.S.A.


6362

47. Iona


Provenance: Given by the artist to the current owner as a wedding present

Like his contemporaries, Cadell, Hunter and Peploe, Milnewas particularly drawn to the Hebridean island of Iona.The white sands, the blues and greens of the water andthe clear light appealed to the artists in the same way thatthe brilliant warm light and azure seas of the South ofFrance had attracted them. Milne may have painted therealongside Peploe and Cadell in the early 1930s and wouldcertainly have been familiar with their Iona paintings.

As well as exploring the shores of Iona, Milne paintedalong the coast of the narrow sea channel, the Sound ofSleat, which separates Skye from the mainland. From thesilver sands at Morar, Milne set up his easel looking acrossto the Isle of Eigg and from the village of Glenelg hepainted the shore with Skye in the background.

In contrast to the rather refined Iona landscapes by Cadelland Peploe, Milne emphasises the wildness of the islandsby his more rugged and energetic technique.

48. Iona, the South End


Provenance: Private collectionPortland Gallery


6564

50. Cathedral Rock, Iona


Provenance: Mr & Mrs F.C. LawsonBy descent

Exhibited: Centenary Exhibition, Dundee CityGalleries, 1985, no.28

49. Ben More, Mull, from Iona


Provenance: T. & R. Annan, GlasgowPrivate collectionBy descent


6766

52. Iona, Looking towards Mull



51. Picnicing, North Shore, Iona


Provenance: Christie's, 2006Private collection


6968

54. Durness



Exhibited: Possibly S.S.A.1933

53. The White Strand, Iona


Provenance: Sotheby's, 2004Private collection


55. Landscape, Sutherland


Provenance: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (bequest of Mr W. W. Frisken of Dundee, through Mrs Frisken, 1967)

Reproduced with kind permision of the ScottishNational Gallery of Modern Art

70 71


7372

57. Sannox Bay, Arran


Provenance: Mr and Mrs W. S. SimeBy descent

56. Cornfield, Sannox, Arran


Provenance: Phillips, 1988Private collection

Exhibited: Possibly R.G.I. 1945

It was supposedly on this beach that Milne met hissecond wife Elsie in the early 1940s. According toMilne’s relatives, Elsie was walking along the beach withher sister when she saw a dapper looking gentleman,wearing tweed and smoking a pipe, walking towardsthem. They stopped to greet each other and introducethemselves. On parting, Elsie turned to her sister andsaid ‘I am going to marry that man’. In 1946 Milne andElsie married.

From different points on the hillside near High Corrie,Milne painted the view down to Sannox Bay. The distanthills across the water are on the Island of Bute. Out ofview to the west (left of Fig.3) lie Glen Sannox and thepeak of Cir Mhor.

Fig. 3

7372


7574

59. An Arran Croft



Exhibited: Possibly R.S.A. 1944

58. Goatfell, Arran




7776

61. Harvest Field, Arran


Provenance: Aberdeen Art Gallery (purchased with the Webster Bequest and Jeffrey Fund, 1992)

Reproduced with kind permission of Aberdeen Art Gallery &Museum

60. Harvest Field, High Corrie, Arran




7978

62. High Corrie, Arran



63. ‘Seaview’, High Corrie, Arran



A steep path leads from the coastal village of Corrie upto the group of white-washed cottages at High Corrie.The cottage seen here on the right was Milne and Elsie’shome, Seaview. His studio was in the bothie to the leftwhich he called ‘mon atelier’. The view from the studiois out to sea. A wild garden strewn with rocks surroundsthe studio and a rapid burn running down from GoatFell passes by the cottage. In the distance the peaks ofHoly Isle can be seen. It was a simple but inviting homewith paraffin lamps and white-washed walls. Milne’spaintings covered the walls and sheepskins covered thefloor. They had an impressive vegetable garden andwould send the local children down to the village shops.They were regular guests at the local pub where Milne inparticular was loved for his story telling. At times, debtswere settled with a painting.

Robert McLellan the playwright and poet lived in one ofthe neighbouring cottages. With Elsie’s musical talent,and their love of poetry, High Corrie had the feeling ofan artist’s colony. In the summer months they held artschools for students from Glasgow.

Fig. 4


8180



Provenance: Acquired from the artistBy descent

65. Blossom, High Corrie, Arran


Provenance: Acquired from the artistBy descent


8382



Provenance: Acquired from the artist’s familyBy descent

66. Ferry Rock, Arran


Provenance: Acquired from the artist’s familyBy descent


8584

69. Corrie, Arran



68. Corrie, Arran




8786

72. Corrie Harbour, Arran



70. Cottages, Arran



71. Gourdon Harbour



The harbour at Corrie was served by the ferry en route toBrodick in the summer months.The quay was originally built to serve the sandstonequarries at Corrie and High Corrie. In Milne’s paintings,one could easily misinterpret the harbour as a scenefrom the South of France. The luminosity, the turquoisewaters and brightly painted boats suggest the warmth ofthe Côte d’Azur. The R.S.A. obituary for Milne ran ‘in theMidi, Milne found himself and the impact of this newexperience stamped all his subsequent work’. In thispainting, this is particularly apparent.

Fig.5


8988



Provenance: Aitken Dott & Son, EdinburghGeorge Street Gallery, Perth, 1990Private collection


SignedOil 24 X 20 ins

Provenance: Acquired by a friend of the artistBy descent


9190

75. Beached Boats, Brodick Bay, Arran


Provenance: Cyril Gerber, GlasgowPrivate collectionMisys plcPortland Gallery

Brodick is the main town on Arran and is reached from themainland by ferry from Ardrossan. The beach and castle atBrodick made it a popular destination in the summermonths. Rowing boats, fishing rods and bathing huts couldbe hired and were popular with tourists - the huts extendedright along the beach (see Fig.6). The geographic variationsof Arran have led to it being termed ‘Scotland in miniature’.The Scottish traditional landscape may appear forbidding attimes but here, Milne bathes it in colour.

Fig.6


9392

1885

John Maclauchlan Milne was born 12 August in Buckhaven,

Fife at his maternal grandmother’s house. His father Joseph

Milne (1858-1911) and uncle William Watt Milne (1865-

1949) were artists working in the tradition of late Victorian

genre. Milne was named after John Maclauchlan, chief

librarian and curator of Dundee Art Gallery and Museum. He

had a sister, Dorothy.

1891

Attended George Watson's

Boy's College, Edinburgh.

He left the school before

he was eighteen. Milne

appears to have had no

formal art training but was

taught by his father. In his

statement for the 1938

exhibition in St. Andrews

he wrote ‘I cannot look

back on a time when I was

not familiar with the smell of

oil paint and the

paraphernalia of a studio’.

1903

Left Scotland for Canada. He departed Glasgow Port on 20

June on board the Sicilian to Montreal with 509 passengers.

He was eighteen, single and registered as an artist.

Life as an artist in Canada proved to be a challenge and Milne

worked as a cowboy at Medicine Hat. Later in life he would

entertain friends and family with stories of his days as a

cowboy and the hardship which saw him begging on the

streets of Montreal.

Only a handful of works have been traced from Milne’s time

in Canada. These are largely watercolours and traditional

Victorian subjects such as ‘Clam Gatherers’.

1907

Appears to have returned home from Canada via London. A

painting titled ‘The River Thames at Kew’ is dated 1907 and another,

‘Strand on the Green’ stylistically dates to the same time.

1911

Married first wife Winifred Clark on 8 July at 34 Chamber

Street, Edinburgh. Milne was registered as living at Forbes

Road, Edinburgh and Winifred at Wilton Cottage, Seafield

Road, Dundee.

1912

Exhibited his first painting titled ‘The Pet’ at the Royal Scottish

Academy (R.S.A.).

1914-18

During the First Word War Milne served with the British

Expeditionary Forces in France. He may have also served with

The Royal Flying Corps (according to T. J Honeyman).

1919

After demobilisation Milne showed two paintings ‘Belgian

Landscape’ and ‘Waterway Normandie’ in the Dundee Art

Society’s ‘Rededication Exhibition’. This exhibition included

‘Mirror’ by Peploe and two paintings by Hunter.

c.1920

It was about this time that Milne went to Paris. He stayed in

Rue des Quatre-Vents and painted famous sights such as the

Luxembourg Gardens, Monmatre, Place de la Concorde and

Notre-Dame. His works from this period are largely on small

panels and were probably painted en pleine air. Between

1921-1923 Milne exhibited five Paris scenes at the Royal

Glasgow Institute (R.G.I.).

Continued his paintings of traditional Scottish life at the same

time as painting Parisian scenes as evidenced by Harvest Field,

1920 (Cat. 3) and Gathering Mussels, 1920.

1922

An exhibition at his studio at 132 Nethergate in the centre of

Dundee received good reviews. He exhibited his first French

work at the R.S.A. that year.

c. 1923

Took a studio in the French village of Lavardin near Tours on

the river Loir (a tributary of the Loire). Milne also painted the

neighbouring village of Langeron.

CHRONOLOGY

1923

The Edinburgh Paper ‘Contributions by Outsiders’ draws

attention to ‘Torridon’ on show at the R.S.A.

1924

The McManus Galleries and Museum (then Dundee

Corporation Collection) purchased A Fife Landscape with the

Morris Trust Fund (a catalogue illustrating the painting with a

brief note was published by the Corporation in 1926).

c.1924

Following in the footsteps of Scottish contemporaries, Milne

moved south to the Côte d’Azur. The majority of his time

was spent in St. Tropez and the surrounding area.

Milne spent the remainder of the 1920s exploring the south

of France, returning to Scotland to sell the works to local

collectors. Since the early 1920s Milne enjoyed the

patronage of Alexander Keiller, a successful Dundee

businessman who helped sponsor Milne’s trips to France.

1926

Became a member of Society of Scottish Artists (S.S.A.).

1928

One Man Exhibition at Reid and Lefevre in Glasgow included a

number of French works and is well received by the critics: ‘Mr

Milne is an artist who is a striver, not content to rest upon his oars’.

1929

Five French works were included in a mixed exhibition of ‘The

Younger Glasgow Group’ at Lefevre Galleries in London. The

exhibition explored the ‘old alliance’ between France and

Scotland.

1930

One-man exhibition at Percy Moore Turner’s Independent

Gallery in London. One work was sold to the Palais du

Luxembourg

Visited Italy but appears to have spent little time there. Only a

small number of Italian subjects were exhibited (Tuscan

Landscape, R.S.A., 1931 and S.S.A., 1931, In Tuscany, 1930

and Spring-time, San Gimignano, 1930.

According to R.S.A. 130th Annual Report Milne also visited Venice.

1930s

Spent increasing amounts of time in the West of Scotland

during the 1930s as the economic situation worsened in

Europe. During this time he often explored the Highlands with

a local businessman, Fred Lawson who was another important

patron. They explored the landscape in a motor caravan,

converted from a First World War ambulance (Fig. 9 & 11) .

1933

Joint exhibition with Stewart Carmichael and Alexander Grieve

at Victoria Art Galleries, Dundee, organised by the Dundee Art

Fig. 8

Fig. 9

Fig. 7


9594

Society. William Boyd presided over the opening ceremony.

The show included three Paris scenes, fifteen images of the

south of France, two Italian subjects, a number of Scottish

landscapes and still lifes as well as watercolours of the golf

courses at Scotscraig and Rosemount. Milne is described in

the catalogue as ‘a daring experimenter’ with a ‘disregard for

old conventions… [Milne] takes by storm heights that timid

climbers shy at. His interpretations are intensely individual,

colourful and exuberant’. Milne had benefited from the

patronage of the progressive collectors Matthew Justice,

William Boyd and John Tattersall for some years and all three

collectors lent paintings by Milne to the exhibition.

Elected Associate of the R.S.A.

Exhibited three works at the 107th R.S.A. exhibition including

Loch Tulla, Argyllshire. It received positive reviews in the

Scottish press. The exhibition included works by Cézanne, Van

Gogh and Gauguin as well as works by Peploe, Cadell and

Fergusson, McTaggart, Gillies and Duncan Grant.

1935

Exhibition at his studio on Nethergate in Dundee included

seventeen scenes of the West Coast such as ‘Sulivan’,

‘Cuillins from Morar’, ‘Loch Gairloch’ and ’Port Appin’.

French scenes include ‘St. Tropez‘ and ‘Provencal Market’.

1936

Exhibited at Dundee Art Society.

McManus Galleries and Museums purchased ‘Glenelg’ with

the Ower Bequest Fund.

1937

Elected full member of R.S.A. His diploma work The Sands

of Morar was deposited at the R.S.A the following year.

1938

Two paintings, ‘Still Life’ and ‘Landscape, Vence’ were

included in a mixed exhibition ‘Contemporary Scottish

Painting’, The Gallery, St. Andrews in August. Other

artists included in the exhibition were Peploe, Fergusson,

Hunter, Cadell, MacTaggart and Gillies.

Sound of Iona was purchased by the International Business

Machines Corporation, New York and was exhibited at the

World’s Fair in New York in 1938. Milne prepared to

exhibit further works in New York but the Second World

War prevented this.

By the end of the 1930s Milne was estranged from his

wife Winifred and they had begun to live separate lives.

c.1940

The outbreak of the Second World War restricted public

travel. This may have contributed towards Milne’s

decision to settle in Arran but it may have had more to

do with meeting Elsie (Elizabeth Livingston MacKellar),

a strong, artistic woman in her early forties who lived

on Arran.

1941

Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery acquired North Glen

Sannox for their permanent collection.

1943

Between 1943-1949 Milne exhibited nine paintings with

Aitken Dott in Edinburgh.

1944

Sound of Sleat presented by the heirs of George L. Harvey to

the McManus Galleries and Museum.

1946

Married Elsie Makellar on 8th August at The Manse (the

minister’s house) in Corrie (Fig.12), shortly after receiving his

decree of divorce from Winifred.

1948

McLean Gallery acquired two works as part of the Stuart

Anderson Caird Bequest.

1949

Sannox Bay was included in a travelling exhibition titled Scottish

Painters which opened in Toledo, Ohio, in December. The

exhibition was organised by the British Council and the

selection committee included Stanley Cursiter and T. J.

Honeyman. Other artists in the exhibition included Mary

Armour, F. C. B Cadell, D. Y. Cameron, J. D Fergusson, W. G.

Gillies, E. A. Hornel, G. L. Hunter, William McTaggart, William

MacTaggart, McIntosh Patrick, S. J. Peploe, Anne Redpath. The

exhibition toured in the United States and in Canada under the

auspices of the National Gallery at Ottawa. Milne’s painting was

illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

1957

Became a visiting artist at Hospitalfield House, the art school

near Arbroath for several months, before becoming ill.

Died on the 28th October of carcinoma of the larynx at the

home of his brother-in-law in Greenock, aged 72.

Fig. 10

Fig. 11

Fig. 12


9796

1. What was the starting-point towards the decision to become an artist?

Is this one a leg-pull, or must candidates attempt all questions?... One can no more explain one’s natural bent

for painting than say why one prefers blondes or brunettes. Obviously, mine is to some extent a case of “Such

a father, such a son”; but the factors of heredity and environment are too complex for analysis. I cannot look

back on a time when I was not familiar with the smell of oil paint and the paraphernalia of a studio. The

Gentle Art of Making Enemies reminds us, however, that “a life passed among pictures does not make a

painter… As well (as) assert that he who lives in a library must needs be a poet.”

2. What do you consider is the function of a painting?

“Art is not a thing but a way,” a way of apprehending reality. It is not a painter’s job merely to make

something pretty, any more than to be useful – uplift people in Victorian times, make propaganda for “the

Party” in our own day… If for the ancients it was enough to say “omnis ars naturae imitatio est,” that was

because imitation meant always representation and not naturalism: style prevailed. When chaos came to

modern Europe and bourgeois materialists hung their walls with horrors that merely flattered their pride of

property, it was inevitable that a theorist like Ruskin should seek a way out of the impasse by proclaiming that

the greatest artist is he “who has embodied in the sum of his works the greatest number of the greatest

ideas,” and that in turn an artist flinging a pot of paint in the face of the public should herald the rejection of

high principles, photographic realism (“Nature is always wrong”) and all the rest of it. Since Whistler’s time

subjectivism has run riot, expression has been elevated above communication, and the artist has tended to

become a creature quite apart. It is not altogether the artist’s fault if he has not been able to sustain the

serenity of Cézanne: just as the artist has a duty as a social being, so society has a duty to acknowledge the

function of the artist. This function a modern aesthete has defined as the creation of “significant form,” and a

Christian poet not so long ago described as the exercise of “that immortal instinct for the beautiful which

makes us consider the world and its pageants as a glimpse of, a correspondence with, Heaven.

The remedying of the rottenness that prevents society recognizing this function is not the artist’s job.

3. To what extent are you aware of consciously participating in or of departing from European traditions of

painting?

I feel under no compulsion to try to “extract the tapeworm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen.” If

remoter parts of the earth have preserved plastic values European art threw overboard for a time, there is no

saying that they will not throw them out under similar compulsions, and meanwhile we must paint as we can

- as twentieth-century Europeans. Le goût nègre, like the goût chinois of Sheraton’s time, or the goût japonné of

not so long ago, must be a short-lived esotericism. I am conscious of being at once a Scotsman and a

European - when I’m not aware only of being a painter.

4. Have you any particular formula for the conception and execution of your work?

I often wish I had… Some subjects leap to the eye and give one no peace until they are worked out: others

have to be looked for. The process by which content and form become one never seems twice the same.

There are occasions when one is aware of imposing a pattern, and others when one is more aware of a

pattern being imposed on one; but as a general rule, I suppose, invocation and evocation become one in the

act of creation. We are most of us not very self-aware, and introspection does not tell us much, least of all

about this. The artist thinks of himself chiefly as a creature of moods: sometimes, quite simply, he is “in the

mood,” and sometimes not. Before trying to be more precise about it, bear in mind that “On confond

l’homme et l’artiste sous pretexte que le hasard les a réunis dans la même corps.”

5. What is your opinion of Scottish painting?

(a) past;

(b) present;

(c) future

(a) Scottish art of the remote past - the art which reached its highest levels in the Irish Book of Kells – was very

vital and rhythmical; but it led to a dead end, and it is difficult for us today to enter into the minds of its

creators. So far as I can judge, it has influenced none of my contemporaries. (It is interesting, of course, to a

modern Scottish artist as being the work of Celtic people: by comparison, the Germanic people, whose mode

of thought was conceptual, was not so much given to plastic art.) When we come to later centuries, when

figure painting and landscape were introduced, there is virtually nothing to hold the modern painter’s

attention for long, so that the modern Scottish artist shares what Mestrovi calls the advantages and

disadvantages of the artist without a rich, continuous national tradition. Calvinism, the loss of national

individuality (which was to drain the country of so many of its finest spirits and turn good Scots into poor

Englishmen), and the rise of modern capitalism wrought their havoc.

Firm and erect the Caledonian stood;

Sound was his mutton, his claret good;

“Let him drink port!” the English statesman cried:

He drank the poison and his spirit died.

He drank much poison of different kinds from over the Border. The Nationalists do not tell the whole truth,

however. Herbert Read has just been telling French readers of the movement, partly economic and partly

religious, which in England brought an end to plastic modes of expression. The movement went further in

Scotland than in England, and the English were not to blame. Though the resultant neurosis “is determined

by societal pressure, the effects reach beyond social activities and rule the individual in his purely personal

modes of expression; it involves giving fixed material expression to personal impulse.” Thus, although we find

much self-assertion in the Scottish Calvinist we find relatively little self-expression.

(b) Things are improving, however: the welcome given to post-impressionism is not casual, but symptomatic.

(c) Although the convalescence must be long, the future looks at the moment more promising than

threatening.

STATEMENT

by John Maclauchan Milne, published in the Exhibition of Contemporary Scottish Painting, The Gallery,

7 North Street, St. Andrews, August 1938. Exhibition organized with the assistance of Reid and Lefevre.

Questions posed by J. H. Whyte


9998

1912 On the Hillside (watercolour)

1915 A Fifeshire Landscape

1918 Harvest Time

Hayrick

1919 A Belgian Landscape

1920 Landscape (Watercolour)

1921 Pont Marie, Paris

Pantheon, Paris

1922 Jardin de Luxembourg, Paris

Rue Royale, Paris

1923 Rue St Honore, Paris

1925 Saint Tropez Bar

1927 Village in Provence

Flowers

1933 Larig Ghru

Flowers

1934 Still Life - Tulips

Eigg from Morar

1936 Provençal Market

Flowerpiece

1937 Cineraria

North Shore, Iona

1938 Summer Seas, Iona

Landscape in Provence

1939 Sound of Iona

Cir Mhor

1940 Dun I, Iona

North Glen Sannox

1941 Glen Sannox

Garbh Choire, Arran

1942 High Corrie, Arran

South Glen, Sannox

1943 Cioch na h-Oighe

Sannox Bay

1944 The Road to Sannox

The Witches’ Step

Springtime in Arran

Sannox Burn

1945 Cornfield, Sannox

Harbour, Corrie

Reflections – Corrie

LIST OF EXHIBITED WORKS

1946 North Shore, Iona

Sannox Bay

Apple Blossom

1947 Brodick Bay

The Cherry Tree

1948 L’Estaque

Port of St Tropez

Dahlias


Port of St Tropez

Flowerpiece

1950 Springtime – Arran

Provençal Village

Port of St Tropez

1951 Spring – High Corrie

Legumes

Roses

1952 Wine Boats – St Tropez

Western Isles

Flowers

1953 Flowerpiece

The Old Harbour- Corrie

1954 Cioch na h-Oighe

Sannox Bay

Prunus

1955 Magnolias

Sunflowers

An Arran Port

1956 The Terrace – St Paul

High Corrie, Arran

Cherry Tree - Corrie

1958 Wine Boats – St Tropez

North Glen Sannox

Sunflowers

Cherry Tree - Corrie

Date Title of Painting

WORKS EXHIBITED AT THE ROYAL GLASGOW INSTITUTE (R.G.I.)


1912 The Pet

1913 A Tayside Village

1915 A Fifeshire Moor

Pittenweem

1919 A Backwater on the Tay

Corn Stooks

1920 Fifeshire Cornfields

An Old Farm, Boarhills

1922 Village de Lavardin

Paysage, Villavard

1923 Torridon - Ross-shire

Sgurr Ruadh

1924 Paysage - Lavardin

1925 Ramatuelle

Paysage de Provence

1926 St Tropez, Var

1927 Paysage, Frejus, Var

1928 Le Port

1929 Paysage de Provence

1930 Le Regime de Legumes

Fleurs

1931 Tuscan Landscape

1932 Carros

1933 Flowers

Loch Tulla

Loch Erribol, Sutherland

1934 Glenelg

Loch Alsh

Hills of Kintail

1935 Cuillins from Loch Hourn

The Croft

Cineraria

1936 Achmelvich

Seascape, Stoer

Suilven

1937 Torrian, Skye

Landscape, Provence

Sands of Morar (diploma work)

1938 Sound of Iona

Flower Piece

Villa Belle Isnard


WORKS EXHIBITED AT THE ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY (R.S.A.)

1939 Treshnish Isles

Paysage, Vence

Apple Blossom

1940 Cir Mhor

North Glen Sannox

Dun I, Iona

1941 Glen Sannox

Garbh Choine, Arran

High Corrie


South Glen Sannox

Autumn, Arran

1943 Sannox Bay

Cioch na h-Oighe

1944 Cornfield – Sannox

An Arran croft

South Sannox Barn

1945 Sannox Kirk

Croft, North Sannox

Cnoc-na-Burnedh

The Bennin, Corrie

Cromla Corrie

1946 Corrie, Arran

Winter – Arran

Sannox Bay

The Cherry Tree - Corrie

1947 Scowl on Cloche

Spring - High Corrie

Magnolia

1948 Glen Rosa

Camelias

The Cherry Tree

1949 St Paul

Landscape, Provence

St Tropez

High Corrie, Arran

1950 Magnolia

High Corrie, Arran

St Tropez

Port St Tropez

1951 Port of St Tropez



101100

1951 La Place, St Tropez

Provincial Village

1952 An Arran Croft

Springtime, Arran

Roses


Flower-piece

1954 Wine Boats, St Tropez

Flower-piece

1958 June Day in Iona

Sands of Morar (Diploma work)

Cir Mhor


WORKS EXHIBITED AT THE R.S.A. continued

1925 St Tropez, Var

Paysage, Var

1926 St Tropez, Var (watercolour)

Paysage (watercolour)

Paysage du Midi

La Maison Blanche

1927 St Tropez (watercolour)

Le Village

Nature Morte

Fleurs

1928 Garden in Provence (property of W. Watson)

Street of the Four Winds, St Tropez

1930 L’Estaque

Fleurs

Paysage St Paul

1931 Old Olive Trees, St Paul (Property of W. Boyd)

Artichokes in Flower (Property of W. Boyd)

Tuscan Landscape

1932 Larkspur

Lairig Ghru

Landscape, Sutherland

Old Port, St Tropez

1933 Durness

Window in St Tropez

Balgie Bridge, Glen Lyon

1934 A Western Shore

Scavaig

White Sands, Morar

1935 A Tuscan Farm

Tulips

1936 Landscape – Vence

Portree Harbour

1937 Summer Seas, Iona (watercolour)

St Tropez (watercolour)

Flowerpiece (watercolour)


Calva Shore, Iona


WORKS EXHIBITED AT THE SOCIETY OF SCOTTISH ARTISTS (S.S.A.)

Aberdeen Art Gallery Harvest Field, Arran

City Art Gallery, Edinburgh Achmelvich

Dundee Art Society East Neuk Harbour

Hunterian Art Gallery Fisherman’s Quay, St. Tropez, 1931

Glen Sannox

Kelvingrove Art Gallery North Glen Sannox

Loch Eriboll

Manchester Art Gallery Artichoke Flowers

McLean Museum & Art Gallery High Corrie

St Tropez

Collection of the City of Dundee / Larig Ghru, 1931

McManus Galleries and Museum Fife Landscape, 1920

Loch Tulla

Saint Tropez

Harbour Scene

Glenelg

The Sound of Sleat, 1934

Seascape

Continental Town Scene

National Galleries of Scotland Landscape Sutherland c.1930-35

Champs aux Chèvres (on loan)

National Trust for Scotland Cassis

Paisley Art Gallery Provence

Perth Museum and Art Gallery S.O.S Post, Chateau Segard near Ypres

Concert, Jardin de Tuileries

Glen Rosa, Arran

Sannox Bay

Pink Roses

June Day, Iona

Seascape, Iona

High Corrie, Arran

Cir Mhor, Arran

The Earn Valley from Celer Fountain Hill

Royal Scottish Academy Sands of Morar, 1937

Clydesdale Bank Summer Sunshine, Cassis

Sannox Bay, Arran

Springwell, Corrie

Corrie, Arran

COLLECTIONS


103102

M. A. Forrest, French Impressions: Scottish Artists in France 1880 to 1950, exh. cat.,

Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh/London, 1985

F. Fowle, Impressionism & Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2008

F. Fowle, ‘Pioneers of Taste: Collecting in Dundee in the 1920s’, Journal of the Scottish

Society of Art History, vol. 11, 2006, pp 56-65

S. Gauldie, ‘A Magician with Paint’, The Scots Magazine, New Series, Vol. 124, No.6,

Dundee, 1986, pp 564-571

S. Gauldie, John Maclauchlan Milne R.S.A. 1885 – 1957: A Centenary Exhibition, exh.

cat., Dundee Art Galleries and Museums, Dundee, 1985

K. Hall, The Isle of Arran, Stenlake Publishing, 2001

W. Hardie, Scottish Painting, 1837 to the Present, Studio Vista, London, 1990, pp 143-144

T. Hewlett, Cadell: The Life and Works of a Scottish Colourist 1883 – 1937,

London/Edinburgh, 1988

T. J. Honeyman, Introducing Leslie Hunter, London, 1937, p. 119

T. J. Honeyman, ‘Maclauchlan Milne’, Scottish Field, May 1955, pp 69-71

P. Long, 'A Collection Revealed: Douglas Hutchison's gift of 20th-Century Scottish Art to

the National Trust for Scotland', Scotland in Trust, 2001

D. MacMillan, Scottish Art, 1460-1990, Edinburgh, 1990, p.326

P. J. M. McEwan, The Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture, Glengarden, 2004

D. Ogston, The Life and Work of George Leslie Hunter 1877 – 1931, Kelso, 2002

G. Peploe, S. J. Peploe: 1871 – 1935, Edinburgh, 2000

K. Simister, Living Paint: J. D. Fergusson 1874 – 1961, Edinburgh, 2001

F. Spalding, Duncan Grant: A Biography, London, 1997

A. Strang, Consider the Lilies; Scottish Painting 1910-1980, Dundee City Council in

association with National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2006

Royal Scottish Academy, 130th Annual Report, Edinburgh, 1957, pp. 9, 282-283

Exhibition of Contemporary Scottish Painting, exh. cat., The Gallery, St Andrews, 1938

REFERENCES

1 Gauldie, A Magician with Paint, page 567

2 R.S.A., 130th Annual Report, page 9

3 Observer (local paper), 24 Feb 1929.

4 A Dundee newsaper, February, 1923

5 Glasgow Herald, Milne Obituary, 29th October 1957

6 T. Honeyman, Introducing Leslie Hunter, p. 119

7 T. Honeyman, Scottish Field, May 1955, p. 70

Fig. 1,2,8,10,12,13 Milne family archive

Fig. 3,5,6 © K.Hall / Stenlake Publishing

Fig. 4 © Visit Scotland Ltd

Fig. 7 Print of Portrait of Milne, 1911, by Stewart Carmichael

Fig. 9,11 Friends of Milne family

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fig.13


We would like to express our sincere thanks to all those who have helped to make possible this exhibition andcatalogue; to Philip Long of The National Galleries of Scotland for his excellent introductory essay; to thedescendants of John Maclauchlan Milne for their assistance in gathering all the family information; and especiallyto the collectors and owners of Milne paintings who have been unfailing generous with their time when we havevisited them and many of whom have allowed us to borrow their paintings.

Portland Gallery exclusively represents the estate of John Maclauchlan Milne.

Images of all paintings are © The Maclauchlan Milne Estate courtesy Portland Gallery, London.

ISBN 978-0-9565720-0-4

Back cover Corrie, Arran Pen and ink 5 x 4 ins Catalogue no.76 Provenance: Sent by the artist as a Christmas card


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