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Redpath was the pivotal figure in the group of painters now referred to as The Edinburgh School, which included artists such as Sir William Gillies, Sir Robin Philipson and Sir William MacTaggart.
She was an inspirational person and formed many enduring friendships throughout her life. Her flat in London Street became an artistic salon, immortalised by Philipson’s affectionate group portrait now in collection of The Scottish National Portrait Gallery. She was the first ever female painter to be elected a member of The Royal Scottish Academy, which she was awarded in 1952.
Like most of the Edinburgh School painters she divided her output between oil and working on paper, valuing each the same. Latterly in her flowers, townscapes and church interiors her treatment of the canvas became more abstract as she abandoned traditional spatial composition. Her technique developed also, employing the palette knife as much as the brush and using rich and brilliant colour. Since her death in 1965 her reputation has been further enhanced with retrospectives including an exhibition at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1996.
This exhibition features early Italian works from her travelling scholarship in 1919, as well as later works from France, Portugal, Scotland and the Canary Islands. Redpath is considered one of the great figures in 20th Century Scottish Painting and we are delighted to be celebrating this significant anniversary with a large presentation of her work.
Anne Redpath was a pivotal figure in the group of painters now referred to as The Edinburgh School. She had attended the College of Art, receiving her diploma in 1917. After a lengthy spell in the south of France, Redpath returned to Hawick in the mid-1930s. Her brilliant manipulation of paint, left in delicious peaks or eked across a rough surface with a palette knife, is characteristic of the varied responses to different subjects at different times. In the last years of her output she often favoured a limited palette; perhaps a few brilliant, jewel-like notes enlivening a dark or white composition.
Redpath was an inspirational person and formed many enduring friendships. Her flat in London Street became an artistic salon, celebrated by Sir Robin Philipson’s famous, affectionate group portrait in The Scottish National Portrait Gallery. She had considerable commercial success in her lifetime, enjoying a fruitful, consistent relationship with The Scottish Gallery and then with Reid & Lefevre in London. Since her passing, her reputation has been further enhanced with retrospective and centenary exhibitions resulting in her being established as one of the great figures in 20th Century Scottish Painting.
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