SIR

See also:

• GEORGE
• GEORGE, 8TH MARQUESS OF TWEEDDALE (1787-1876)
• GEORGE, HENRY (1839—1897)
• GEORGE, LAKE
• GEORGE, SAINT (d. 303)

GEORGE

See also:

• REID, ROBERT (1862– )
• SIR GEORGE REID (1841- )
• REID, SIR ROBERT GILLESPIE (184o-19o8)
• REID, SIR WILLIAM (1791-1858)
• REID, THOMAS (1710-1796)
• REID, THOMAS MAYNE (1818-1883)
• REID, WHITELAW (1837- )

REID (1841- )  , Scottish artist, was born in Aberdeen on the 31st of October 1841 . He developed an early passion for drawing, which led to his being apprenticed in 1854 for seven years to Messrs Keith & Gibb, lithographers in Aberdeen . In 1861 Reid took lessons from an itinerantportrait-painter, William Niddrie, who had been a pupil of James Giles, R.S.A., and afterwards entered as a student in the school of the Board of Trustees in Edinburgh . He returned to Aberdeen to paint landscapes and portraits for any trifling sum which his work could command . His first portrait to attract attention, from its fine quality, was that of George Macdonald, the poet and novelist, now the property of the university of Aberdeen . His early landscapes were conscientiously painted in the open air and on the spot . But Reid soon came to see that such work was inherently false, painted as the picture was day after day under varying conditions of light and shade . Accordingly, in 1865 he proceeded to Utrecht to study under A . Mollinger, whose work he ad-mired, from its unity and simplicity . This change in his method of viewing Nature was looked on as revolutionary by the Royal Scottish Academy, and for some years his work found little favour in that quarter; but other artists gradually adopted the system of tone-studies, which ultimately prevailed . Reid went to Paris in 1868 to study under the figure painter Yvon; and he worked in 1872 with Josef Israels at the Hague . From this time forward Reid's success was continuous and marked .

He showed his versatility in landscape, as in his " Whins in

Bloom," which combined great breadth with fine detail; in flower-pieces, such as his " Roses," which were brilliant in rapid suggestiveness and force; but most of all in his portraits, which are marked by great individuality, and by fine insight into character . His work in black-and-white, his admirable illustrations in brushwork of Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, and also his pen-drawings, about which it has been declared that " his work contains all the subtleties and refinements of a most delicate etching," must also be noted . Elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 187o, Reid attained full membership in 1877, and took up his residence in Edinburgh in 1882 . In 1891 he was elected President—a post which he held until 1902—receiving also the honour of knighthood, and he was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 . His brother Samuel (b . 1854) was also a painter and a writer of tales and verse .