Spring Flowers, c.1965

Born in Kirkcaldy in 1938, Lilian Neilson was a compelling landscape painter, an artist whose work was shaped profoundly by the elemental coastline and weather of northeast Scotland. She studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee from 1955–1960, where she developed a rigorous approach to drawing and painting before undertaking a post-diploma year under Hugh Crawford and Alberto Morrocco in 1960–61. Awarded a travelling scholarship to France and Italy in 1961–62, Neilson absorbed the influence of European modernism while refining a deeply personal visual language rooted in direct observation and emotional response to place.