Speaker - Jim Douglas - The Works of John Lavery

President John Spittal passed on the good news that the previous week’s quiz night held in the New Golf Club had raised more than £600 for distribution to various charities.

He introduced speaker for the evening, member Jim Douglas.

Jim gave a fascinating talk on Sir John Lavery, a respected portrait and landscape artist, born in 1856 and who died aged 84 in 1941.

It is no wonder that Jim is clearly a fan of the artist. Both Lavery and Jim Douglas were born in Belfast – though some years apart!

The curiosity of Lavery being one of the influential Glasgow Boys group of artists came about because Lavery was orphaned at the age of 4 and was sent to live with relatives in Saltcoats, and later went to school in Glasgow.

His early painting career involved landscape scenes of many golf courses, of which North Berwick seemed to be his favourite. One of his paintings of the course there, which featured Herbert Asquith and his step-daughter playing golf, sold in 2015 for the sum of £850,000.

Lavery really made his name and launched his career as a society painter when in 1888 he was commissioned to paint the state visit of Queen Victoria to the Glasgow International Exhibition.

An incredibly prolific artist, Lavery was appointed an official war artist during World War 1 and thereafter travelled all over the globe committing scenes to canvas.

His works range from paintings of Paisley Ladies Tennis Club, croquet games on the Ayrshire coast to portraits of Shirley Temple and other Hollywood stars produced during his travels in the USA.

Lavery lost his first wife and their young daughter to tuberculosis near the end of the 19^th century. In 1909 he married his second wife, Hazel, an Irish-American. Astonishingly, he went on to paint more than 400 varied portraits of Hazel, one of which, painted on commission for the Irish government, featured on Irish banknotes from 1828 until 1975.

In proposing a vote of thanks, Bruce Clark noted that he had in the last few days seen one of Lavery’s greatest World War 1 paintings hanging in Dundee’s McManus Gallery. As were all the company, Bruce was impressed by Jim’s broad and interesting historical knowledge of his subject.