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This catalogue marks a significant anniversary for one of Scotland’s greatest painters and the beginning of the Gallery’s representation of the artist’s estate and legacy.Glasgow painter William Crosbie had a fine, enquiring mind, was deeply read and immersed in the liberal arts; he had great technical gifts and was happy to apply these far beyond the confines of studioand easel but at the same time he recognised that a painter needed to paint and to exhibit. This determination to be engaged with the hurlyburly and a prodigious work ethic have left much to be rediscovered and celebrated in the centenary year of his birth.
William Crosbie studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1932-5. A travelling scholarship took him to Paris, where he worked under Fernand Léger, and took classes in History of Art at The Sorbonne and in drawing with Maillol. Crosbie was part of a group of artists and writers who were very active immediately before the Second World War painting portraits. Later in his career it was by working with architects, decorating firms and painting murals that he was able to make a living, and continue to create the paintings that he wanted to paint.
Through his career he excelled in an extraordinary variety of subjects: straightforward landscapes of Scotland, England and France; still life, the female nude, a sort of modern fête champêtre; surrealism; religious painting; portraiture, both intimate and official and the self-portrait.
“As a painter I have always worked in the belief that once you have mastered a technique or perfected a style, that’s the time to stop. Each piece of work should be a fresh beginning as far as possible.” William Crosbie, 1974.
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