* COWAN DOBSON (SCOTTISH 1894 - 1980),
PORTRAIT OF A BOY
oil on canvas board, signed and indistinctly dated (19)23 or possibly 73
50cm x 40cm
Framed and under glass.
Note: David Cowan Dobson was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, the second son of the Scottish portrait painter Henry John Dobson (1858–1928). The family returned to Edinburgh and he was educated at George Watson's College and later studied art in Edinburgh, London and Paris. Dobson first exhibited at Royal Academy (London) when aged only nineteen and began showing at the Royal Scottish Academy four years later. Dobson's works were also exhibited at the Royal Society of Arts, Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Society of British Artists, Royal Cambrian Academy, The Fine Art Society and at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Around 1920 he moved to London and from then on he worked and resided mainly in London but occasionally, he would work in and around Glasgow. As his reputation grew, he dropped the name "David" and was, for the majority of his life, known as "Cowan Dobson". He enjoyed a reputation as one of his generation's finest portrait painters and sitters included Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and numerous significant public and society figures. Dobson enjoyed significant commercial success and thirty-six of his paintings, almost all portraits, are held in UK public collections including Glasgow Museums, The National Galleries of Scotland, Imperial War Museum, Paisley Art Institute and the universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge and Newcastle.