The view from his window looking into his back garden was a favourite winter subject painted in monumental scale in oil, and brilliantly here in watercolour in an upright format. This painting, rendered first in pencil then completed in watercolour, was exhibited and sold in December 1972, four months before his death in April 1973.
Sir William Gillies is still highly underrated in Modern British terms. Born in Haddington, he trained and taught at Edinburgh College of Art, and did the latter as principal. He was a great influence on many of the next generation of the Edinburgh School. He himself studied in Paris with Andre Lhote and absorbed, variously, the work of Munch, Matisse, Braque and Bonnard. Still life and landscape oils tend to be composed studio pieces of subtle complexity. Watercolours are lyrically observed renderings of the Scottish Borders based on decisive pencil or pen drawings or for larger works, executed alla prima. Gillies had a long and fruitful relationship with The Scottish Gallery which continues in the secondary market.