Sculptor born in Musselburgh, East Lothian He trained as a stone-carver under William Birnie Rhind before studying at Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. He received numerous commissions for architectural sculpture, and produced war memorials at Killin, Perthshire (1920); Oban, Argyll and Bute (1919–23); South Ronaldsay, Orkney (1921); Dornoch, Highlands (1922); Forres, Moray (1922); Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland (1923); Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire (1923); and Newburgh, Fife (1923). He began teaching at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1918, and in 1928 succeeded Percy Portsmouth as head of the sculpture department, where he exercised a formative influence on many younger sculptors, including Hew Lorimer, Elizabeth Dempster, and George Mancini. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Scottish Academy, becoming an associate member in 1918 and a full member in 1929.
Bibliography: P.J.M. McEwan, The Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture, Ballater, Aberdeenshire, 2004; R. McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Edinburgh (2 vols), Liverpool, 2018, vol. 1, pp. 108–09, 126–27, 132–34, 257–58, 450, vol. 2, pp. 316, 374–78, 384–85, 433–35, 497; P. Usherwood et al, Public Sculpture of North-East England, Liverpool, 2000, p. 16.
Ray McKenzie 2018