Sir John Lavery: The brilliant Irish artist who became a Glasgow Boy set for National Gallery exhibition

Sir John Lavery’s life and works will be explored in An Irish Impressionist: Lavery on Location. The exhibition will take place at the National Gallery in Edinburgh between 20 July and 27 October 2024.

Born in Belfast in 1856, Lavery first arrived in Scotland aged 10. Following the death of his parents he lived first with relatives in Ireland before settling with distant relatives in Saltcoats. 

However, his formative years were not easy. In his memoirs, Life of a Painter, Lavery describes his journey to Glasgow aged 15. “I cannot remember where I got the money, I must have robbed the till, but one morning I took the train for Glasgow,” he said.

There was time spent sleeping rough and scavenging for food - “they say that I was a skeleton when found wandering one night in the Saltmarket.”

Two years after first arriving in Glasgow, Lavery answered a newspaper advert: "Situations Vacant: A smart lad with knowledge of drawing wanted. Apply with specimens of work to J. B. MacNair, Artist and Photographer, 11 West Hill Street."

Working as an apprentice to MacNair, he was able to attend Glasgow School of Art and at the end of his apprenticeship three years later, he took on a small studio in a West End tenement where he painted commissioned sittings.

The studio would not last however - burning down a year after he took it on. Behind on bills and struggling to finish sittings, Lavery was unperturbed. “I cannot remember ever feeling so happy,” he said - an emotion not cooled by the £300 insurance money he received.

That allowed him the opportunity to travel - something which he would continue to do for the rest of his life. First to London and then on to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian, and the artists’ colony of Grez-sur-Loing - where he worked, informally, with other painters dubbed the Glasgow Boys.

Upon returning from France, Lavery had his first success with his painting the Tennis Party. Whilst the painting was accepted into the Royal Academy, was displayed in Paris and then purchased by Neue Pinakothek in Munich, Lavery was criticised by critics for a “decline into mere vulgarity.”

He would find further breakthrough in 1888 when he was commissioned to paint the state visit of Queen Victoria to the Glasgow International Exhibition. The commission launched Lavery’s career as a society painter.

Under the patronage of William Burrell he continued to produce and would paint what would become known as one of his finest works, a portrait of Burrell’s sister - Mary Burrell.

However, Lavery would remain a well-worn traveller, and always with his easel nearby - with which he was able to record an ever changing world - something that the exhibition looks to demonstrate, with its themed rooms.

“His paintings offer, on the one hand, a nostalgic glimpse of a bygone era and, on the other, a modern world of sunshine and leisure,” according to Professor Frances Fowle, senior curator at the National Gallery. “Technically he was a true impressionist, intent on capturing a particular moment or atmospheric effect – perhaps night falling on Tangier, or early morning light, dancing on the crest of a wave.”

Like many of the Glasgow School, Lavery would eventually focus on portraits - often of members of high society - and was commissioned as a First World War painter. For someone who was well travelled, ill health and a serious car crash prevented him from visiting the Western Front.

Returning to Ireland, Sir John Lavery died in Rossenarra House, Kilmoganny, County Kilkenny on 10 January 1941, aged 84. Guest Curator Kenneth McConkey describes Lavery’s longevity of output, calling his output over his 60 year career “immense”. 

“He saw carthorses become ‘horse-power’, windjammers transform into steamers, and flying machines reborn as air liners,” explains McConkey. “The same remarkable hand that brought us a Dutch Cocoa House in 1888 takes us to a tea-table in Palm Springs in 1938.”

The exhibition includes studies from Switzerland, Spain, Ireland and Italy, and depictions of cities from Glasgow to London, Venice, Cannes and New York. An Irish Impressionist: Lavery on Location will take place at the National Gallery in Edinburgh between 20 July and 27 October 2024.