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John Houston was the foremost expressionist landscape painter of his generation. He used colour in a direct, emotional way to engage with the subconscious. His great subject is the Forth Estuary, initially from the Fife side, often depicting the fields and birds rising from hedgerows above the sea, observed walking near his home in Buckhaven. And later, when his home was in Edinburgh, he painted north and east, from Gullane and North Berwick in all media, times of year and weather. The Bass Rock became a recurring motif, the great basalt plug once the home of prisoners, now just the home of gannets and kittiwakes. Like Mt. St. Victoire near Aix for Cézanne, Houston found limitless inspiration from this ever-changing locale, the subtlest pale of snow over water or, as here, the full drama of rock, sea and sunset.
John, who graduated from and subsequently taught at Edinburgh College of Art showed with The Scottish Gallery from the late 1950s. His vibrant, expressive oils and watercolours will be familiar to many. He was honoured with a major retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2005. His death in 2008 saddened all who care for the best of Scottish painting.
We are actively looking for artwork by John Houston. If you have any works you are interested in selling please contact The Gallery.
Click here to view prints by this artist.
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