I had a note from a reader telling me how how pleased they were to find Frances Blair's colour woodcut 'At the Trossachs'. I am not surprised. This stylish and very attractive print has not been seen online before and was sold only in July in St. Petersburg, Florida, so it has provided me with a good opportunity to let readers see another side to Blair. Very much in the Scottish tradition of art deco picnics, it is numbered 32/100 so Blair must have sold quite a few, leaving us all with hope we may find it, too, one day.
Many thanks to the reader for tipping me off. I only wish I had got there first.
` At the Trossachs ` is an early print by Frances Blair exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute in 1926.along with `Cornish Cream Shop ` ,three years after her close friend Helen Stevenson exhibited `The Campers`, also at the RGI. Much later in 1934 , came Ian Cheyne`s very stylish `Campers`. The subject matter is broadly similar in each case and all three artists were Scots .
ReplyDeleteThe Trossachs is a very scenic area of mountains and lochs to the north west of Stirling for those unfamiliar with Scotland. Blair captures it well in this atmospheric print..
I did an injustice to Ian Cheyne by omitting to mention his `Summer Picnic` of 1928.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the context. Jim. I wanted to get the post up and didn't have the time to check out Stevenson and Cheyne. It looks like Cheyne may have got the idea from Blair.
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