Sir William MacTaggart (1903 -1981)

Past President of the Royal Scottish Academy

Painter, born at Loanhead, Scotland, grandson of the painter William McTaggart. He attended Edinburgh College of Art, 1918-21 where his tutors included David Figgie and David Alison. He travelled to the South of France in 1922 a practise he kept up most of his professional life apart from World War II, in fact he held his first solo exhibition in the hall of St. Andrews Church, Cannes in 1924. In 1929 he was given his solo Scottish exhibition at Aitken & Dott, Edinburgh and in 1922 he was elected a member of the SSA and became a founder member of the little-known 1922 Group. He held the Presidency of that society from 1933-36 of the Society of Scottish Artists. Elected to the RSA in 1922 he was its President from 1959-69.

Mactaggart was knighted in 1962 and his painting is represented in most British major public galleries including Glasgow Art Gallery, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Bideford Art Gallery, Devon, SNGMA, Stirling University Art Collection, Cartwright Hall Museum, ACGB, CAS, the Fleming Collection and the Tate Gallery as well as in the USA, New Zealand and Australia. His Post-Impressionist landscape style owed much to the Scottish Colourists. Later, in the 1930’s, his style became more expressionistic under the influence of German and Norwegian art. His work developed further after he saw the 1952 Rouault exhibition in Paris, the forms within his pictures merging into masses of glowing colour. The spelling of his surname differs from that of his grandfather, being “MacT” instead of “McT”.

Sources: www.artbiogs.co.uk