George Fiddes Watt


George Fiddes Watt was a Scottish portrait painter and engraver.

Early life and education

Watt was born on 15 February 1873 in Aberdeen.
He studied art at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen and the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. He was elected to the Royal Society of Arts in 1924 and received an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1955.

Career

Watt's work was exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1906 to 1930. His portrait of his mother is in the Tate Gallery's collection.
Watt was sculpted by Henry Snell Gamley in 1912, Watt's son Albert having been sculpted by Gamley four years previously. A bronze statue of Watt by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones, made in 1942, is in Aberdeen.

Personal life an death

His third son, Alexander Stuart Watt was a journalist based in Paris. Alastair Fiddes Watt is also a landscape painter.
Watt died on 22 November 1960 in Aberdeen.

Works

Watt's large output includes paintings of many famous people of his time in Britain. An exception among the many portraits is a landscape, J. P. Inverarity Mauled by a Lioness, Somaliland .

Portraits

; Lawyers
; Divines
  • William Paterson Paterson
; Scientists
  • Sir J. J. Thomson
; Politicians
;Academics