Details

Object type

painting

Title

Nude

Artist/Maker

James Cowie artist

Culture/School

Scottish

Place Associated

Scotland, Angus, Arbroath, Hospitalfield (place made)

Date

1946

Materials

oil on canvas

Dimensions

unframed: 298 mm x 527 mm

Description

This nude by Scottish painter James Cowie (1886-1956) shows a young woman reclining on a bed, head on a white pillow, a red blanket beneath her hips and legs, a white sheet underneath and folded over. Her arms lie above her head. She is seen from the side, her head and legs turned away from the viewer. The colours are chalky and pale, apart from the red blanket, and the whole is abstracted, the background indistinct.

The model was Welsh painter, poet and dancer Rosemary (‘Ray’) Howard-Jones. The painting dates to 1946 when Cowie was supervisor at the Patrick Allan-Fraser School of Art at Hospitalfield House, a postgraduate residential school on the outskirts of Arbroath in Angus; he had taught there since 1937. Howard-Jones was awarded a place at Hospitalfield in the summer of 1946. She described Cowie when she arrived as ‘in a deep despair & drinking too heavily – collapsing […] I did my best to encourage him […] & he started to paint again – very successfully.’ Along with fellow student Donald Rudd, they used to make ‘many working trips around Arbroath & Auchmithie, when we went down to the Quay, all the fishermen used to sing out “Here comes Mr Picassie”!’ Howard-Jones and Cowie became particularly close. She had an effervescent personality and they shared an interest in poetry and music, as well as art. Although the normal term finished in September, Howard-Jones stayed until December.

Probably confused with another painting, Cowie’s wife Alice wrongly dated this work to 1933 before Cowie had even met Howard-Jones. The latter wrote to Andrew Hannah, Deputy Director of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, in 1972 to correct this misapprehension: ‘the painting by James Cowie which you have, & is a nude of myself painted at Hospitalfield in the summer of 1946 […] I sat – lay! – for many hours for this & saw the finished work both at Hospitalfield & in The Glasgow museum some years ago – making a special journey from Edinburgh were I was making the large mosaic for Grange Church […] I took off my shoes, but James kept saying No – put them on again – much better design. He was pleased – rightly – with the work.’ Cowie often painted his students, but this nude was unusual. He wrote to Howard-Jones: ‘I have expended great love and care on your nude portrait (a print away way back on the wall which forms the background), very tender and evanescent’.

Cowie also wrote: ‘thank you again for all you have done for me – I have never told you the full meaning of it […] You have sent me back to the beauty of tonal painting which I had somewhat deserted for other things.’ In turn Howard-Jones described Cowie as ‘a 1st-class instructor, I learned much of value’. After Hospitalfield they met up in the Borders, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Suffolk. Cowie died in 1956 after suffering a stroke and Howard-Jones painted Homage to James Cowie around 1958 as a comment on their friendship and on Cowie’s influence.

Credit Line/Donor

Purchased from the artist, 1947

ID Number

2684

Location

In storage