John Blair (painter)


John Blair was a Scottish painter, predominantly of watercolour landscapes. Of humble beginnings in Berwickshire, he moved to Edinburgh to study and spent the rest of his life there. His paintings mainly reflect the landscapes around him, both of urban settings and also of the castles, sea and lochs of the Borders, although he also painted figures and still lifes. As well as his original work, his paintings were viewed by a wide audience in the form of picture postcards, book endpapers and illustrations.

Life and career

Blair was born in the Berwickshire village of Hutton, in about 1849. His family background would not seem to have favoured his choice of career, which suggests a certain degree of ability in order to make it succeed, nor perhaps predicted him leaving an estate of £3418 4s 6d on his death in 1934. His father's occupation is listed on various census records/official documents as "agricultural labourer", "salmon fisher" and "gardener". His parents Alexander and Elisabeth Blair, together with their family of 5 children, moved around the area; the census recorded them in Hutton in 1851 and in Coldstream in 1861.
Somewhere in this period, Blair attended the nearby Sunnyside school at Milne Graden, and it is there that local landowner David Milne-Home befriended him. This resulted in Milne-Home arranging for Blair to train at the Trustees Academy School of Art, where Blair studied under Charles Hodder.
By 1871 Blair had left home for South Leith, where he lodged with Francis and Clementina Brown at 8 Primrose Street, giving his occupation as "art student".
He first exhibited in the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1870, with paintings entitled "Newhaven", "Fawside Castle, Edinburgh" and "Bait gatherers". He went on to exhibit some 83 paintings in the RSA Annual Exhibitions until 1920.
He is also said to have exhibited at the Dudley Gallery (London), Glasgow Institute of Fine Art, Walker Art Gallery, Manchester City Art Gallery, Royal Hiberian Academy, The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the Berwick Arts Club, and was a member of the Society of Scottish Artists.
Whilst a student, Blair was awarded several medals of national standing – in 1870 The Scotsman referred to “the silver medal, gained by Mr John Blair in the male school” as one of the 20 silver medals awarded that year across the 103 Government schools. Then in 1872 the Berwickshire News reported that Blair had been awarded both a gold and a silver medal: "We understand that the Edinburgh Schools of Arts for young men has this year been successful….. in the national competition of students recently held at London. The gold medal was awarded to John Blair, a native of Paxton, for the best shaded study of an antique figure, also a silver medal for a study in water colour. This is the third silver medal taken by him, and the only instance in the Edinburgh School in which a student has carried off a gold and silver medal in the same year."
By the 1881 census he titled himself "artist landscape" and was living in Leith.
Blair married his wife Margaret Hume in 1899, with their respective ages 48 and 39. They lived for some time at 37 Argyle Place, Morningside where Blair stated his profession as "landscape artist" and "Painter ". His obituary in the Berwickshire News stated that his "failing health in late years prevented him using the brush" and this may well explain why he no longer has any paintings exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy after 1920.
He died on 13 October 1934 at his home, 121 Dalkeith Road, Edinburgh, of "Cerebral haemorrhage 2 days" and "Senility", at the age of 84 years. His funeral, according to The Berwickshire News, was conducted by the Rev. W. Roy Sanderson, St Giles Cathedral, and he was buried in Liberton Cemetery, Edinburgh. In addition to family members, one of his pall-bearers was the artist Hector Chalmers RSA.

Works

Illustrations and picture postcards

There are numerous works by Blair which continue to come up in auction sales. In addition, his works were used to illustrate a number of publications, and over 80 of them appear as Tuck's Post Cards. Known publications in which Blair's illustrations were used:The Birds of Berwickshire Volume 1 by George Muirhead.The Birds of Berwickshire Volume 2 by George Muirhead.A Summer in Skye by Alexander Smith.Poems of Wordsworth, Nimmo's Clyde Classics series.

Museum collections

A few of his works are to be found in museum collections, as follows:
In addition, Edinburgh Libraries mounted an exhibition in February 2020 of 13 lithographs of Edinburgh and Midlothian taken from watercolours of John Blair. The original exhibition of watercolours was held in 1892 at the gallery of Aitken, Dott and Sons in Castle Street, Edinburgh. The Berwickshire News carried a review which noted that "Mr Blair’s work is really most successful; a labour of love, its results are as valuable from the purely artistic as from the historical point of view; and the care which he has taken to select typical and striking points of view renders the value of the collection to the future historian of Edinburgh very great".

Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibitions

The following works by Blair were exhibited at Annual Exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy between 1870 and 1920.
YearRSA Catalogue NumberDescription
1870177Newhaven
1870181Fawside Castle, Edinburgh in the distance
1870242Bait gatherers
1871941Peace and plenty
1871944The Calton Hill from Lochend Road, Leith
18711006Study from still life, fruit, etc.
18711051A dead sparrow
18711093Study of a bird's nest, etc. – from nature
1872775Old shed at Cramond – sketch
1872846On the Esk at Dalkeith
1872875Still life – study
1872121Princes St, Edinburgh
1873761Village of Old Ladykirk, Berwickshire
1873926A quiet nook near Ladykirk, Berwickshire
1873980Study in still life
1874771Old bridge, Berwick-on-Tweed
1874934Melrose Abbey
1874948Greens Harbour, Berwick-on-Tweed
1874993On the Tweed, near Melrose
1875802Melrose Abbey from the east
1875988Archway in Melrose Abbey
187664A country byre
1876174Taking a rest
1876528After dinner
1877737Tibbie's Bible
1877796A country burnside
1877893The reaper's dinner
1878149The sculptor
1878330A November morning
1878534The ploughman's bairns
187937Preparing for sport
1879302A turnip field
1879356Early winter
1879562Reapers at work
1880274Summer
1880444Autumn morning – after rain
1880544Breakfast time
1880636Tyne
1880756The country postman
1881363Honeysuckle
1881393A quiet nook
188280Study of cattle
1882143The mother's lesson
1882636Grandfather's pet
1882775Edge of the wood
188392A deaf old man
1883210The old fiddler
18831029Salmon fishers mending nets, on the Tweed
18831077The ploughman's orra time
1884915A visit to the henhouse
1884917A country cobbler
1884929Village of Heul, near Rotterdam
1885112"The rain it raineth every day With heigh ho the wind and the rain"
1885123The quiet of evening
1885289The old fiddler
1885387The Sunday reading
1885439Sorting the hooks
1885588The village of Horndean – rainy effect
1885621Gathering brushwood
1885752Resting in the shade
1885798The Pease Glen – moonlight
1885890Playmates
1885689Snow in autumn
1885924The little boat builders
1885995The Bible lesson
1886689His morning chapter
18861025The bramble gatherer
18861141Dinner time
1887637"I've seen Tweed's silver streams glittering in the sunny beams..."
1887110Waiting to be shod
1887190Noonday
1887275Jubilee illuminations – Edinburgh from the Calton Hill
1887620Jubilee bonfire on Arthur's Seat
1887713Pen & ink drawings for vignettes to Birds of Berwickshire by George Muirhead
1887801Pen & ink drawings for vignettes to Birds of Berwickshire by George Muirhead
1888695The Tweed at Fishwick
1888910The heat of the day
1889394The Tweed
1889835Wind and rain
1889960Grannie's lesson
1890412The pedlar
1890472At Brig o' Turk
1890560In Glenfinlas
1892662St Abbs village, Berwickshire coast
1893?Interior at Lauder – study
1894457On the canal at Aston, Staffordshire
1895519Gipsies – bird catching
1896597East coast fisherman
1897579On the Fife coast
1897605Stormy weather, St Monance
1897660The Ochils, near Dollar
1898648St Monance
1898786At Brig o' Turk
1899608Sunday by the sea – St Monance
1900742Stormy weather, Crail
19012On the Tweed near Norham
1901692The coming storm, St Abbs
1903116Eyemouth – squally weather
1904125The South Queich, Kinross
1904134Loch Leven
1905113In Strathearn
190724On the Fife coast
190754Kinnoul Hill
190838The boats at Ferryden
190849The Grampians from Seck Bridge
190920Largo Bay
190994Lundin Links
191083Near Montrose
191088Flodden Field
1912395At Drommochty
1913295Changing pasture
1913298Haymaking, Brig o' Turk
1915471The Pentlands from Duddingstone
1916503Milne's Court, Lawnmarket
1917467Valley of the Tay, near Dunkeld
1918497On the Fife coast
1918621Harvesting on the Borders
1919616On the Whitadder
1919695Near Berwick
1920665At Whitsome, Berwickshire