JAMES KAY RSA RSW (SCOTTISH 1858 - 1942)
THE PORTRAIT OF VIOLET KAY

oil on board, signed
framed

image size 34cm x 24cm, overall size 50cm x 40cm

Provenance: Understood to have been in the same family collection for around 100 years. Loaned to "James Kay" Perth Festival of The Arts, Perth Museum & Art Gallery 18th May - 14th June 1987 catalogue number 18 - described in the catalogue as: ".... the treatment of his daughter is altogether more vigorous. The life-force of youth is symbolically conveyed by the vertically rising apple trees which frame Violet in a way which recalls the precedents of, for example, Stuart Park's "A Gypsy Maid 1892" or David Gauld's "Head of a Girl"
Comment: In the writer's opinion, a stunning portrait of the artist's daughter. Violet McNeish Kay went on to establish herself as a respected artist and teacher. Violet lived at Garelochhead and often painted landscapes of the Scottish west coast using bold areas of strong colours. She died at Helensburgh on 3 March 1971. She had a heart attack while country dancing.
Note: James Kay (22 October 1858 - 26 September 1942) was a Scottish painter who achieved significant critical acclaim and commercial success in Scotland and in Europe. Born on the Isle of Arran, Kay spent much of his working life with a studio in Glasgow and living at Portincaple on Loch Long in Argyll. He was elected to the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW) in 1906 and to the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) in 1938. Primarily a landscape artist, Kay is best known for his portrayals of "the glory of the busy shipping reaches of the Clyde". He showed great originality, influenced by the emergence of impressionism in the 1880s. Kay achieved regular recognition at exhibitions in Europe. He exhibited at the Salon in Paris in 1894, and at the 1895 La Libre Esthetique in Brussells was awarded an honourable mention. In 1903 his painting Toil and Grime was awarded the silver medal at the Societe des Amis des Arts in Rouen, while another work, River of the North, won the gold medal at the Paris Salon. In 1907 his painting Launch of the Lusitania was purchased by the Corporation of Glasgow for the city's art collection.