Details

Name

Daniel Macnee

Brief Biography

1806 – 1882, Scottish

Occupation

Painter

Description

Sir Daniel Macnee (1806–1882) was a renowned Glasgow portraitist. Born in Fintry, he trained under Glasgow landscape painter John Knox from 1820, alongside Horatio McCulloch. Early influences include Scottish portraitists Henry Raeburn and Andrew Geddes. As young artists, McCulloch and Macnee worked together, initially making a living painting the lids of snuff boxes in Cumnock, Ayrshire and then designing colour plates for engraver and publisher William Home Lizars in Edinburgh. Here Macnee began attending classes at the Trustees' Academy and was a founder member of the Edinburgh Life Academy Association in 1827, along with David Scott, John Steell and Alexander Fraser. He first exhibited his portraits in Edinburgh in this year and showed several works at the first exhibition of the Dilettanti Society in Glasgow in 1828.

Macnee returned to Glasgow in 1832 to set up a fashionable portrait business at 126 West Regent Street, painting many distinguished Scots, including Glasgow ministers, politicians, manufacturers and shipbuilders (for example John Dykes, Provost; Sir William Jackson MP; Rev James Begg; Peter Coats, thread magnate; Charles Randolph, shipbuilder; Robert Dalglish MP; John Elder, shipbuilder; Peter Denny, shipbuilder; and Rev Robert Barclay). He was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1855, for his portrait of Rev Dr Ralph Wardlaw (Glasgow Life Museums). He was elected a member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1829 and became its President in 1876, succeeding Sir George Harvey. He was knighted in 1877 and moved from Glasgow to Edinburgh. In the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.