The Whithorn Textile

Camouflaged Soldiers, 1943, Oil on canvas, 70 x 35 cm

William Scott was born in Greenock in 1913. In 1924, his family moved to his father’s home town of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland where he later enrolled at the Belfast School of Art, moving to London three years later to take up a place at the Royal Academy Schools, initially in the sculpture department, later changing to painting.

Girl and a Birdcage, c.1947, Oil on canvas, 78.8 x 86.4 cm

In 1951, he was one of sixty artists invited by the Arts Council to exhibit as part of the celebrations marking the Festival of Britain. Around this time, his work moved closer to non-figuration and his first one-man show at the Hanover Gallery in London, which opened in June 1953, included a number of virtually abstract paintings. That year, he took an extended visit to North America which resulted in friendships with New York based artists including Mark Rothko and William de Kooning. One of the first British artists to be aware of Abstract Expressionism, the work he saw in America made Scott aware of how much his painting was, and would continue to be, tied to a European artistic tradition. Indeed throughout the 1960s his work was exhibited across Europe and, recognising his important place in contemporary art, the Tate Gallery in London held a major retrospective of over 125 paintings in 1972.

Brown Still Life, 1957, Oil on canvas, 102 x 127 cm

Throughout his career, the themes of still-life, landscape and the female nude recur in Scott’s work. Although there are phases where his paintings could be called abstract, more often they explore the space between abstraction and figuration. Scott said, “I am an abstract artist in the sense that I abstract. I cannot be called non-figurative while I am still interested in the modern magic of space, primitive sex forms, the sensual and the erotic, disconcerting contours, the things of life.”

Berlin Blues 1, 1965, Oil on canvas, 160 x 173 cm

‘Whithorn’ was commissioned from William Scott in 1961 by the architect Eugene Rosenberg for the interior of Altnagelvin Hospital, Derry, the first new hospital to be built in Britain following the introduction of the National Health Service. Scott had already been commissioned to paint a 45-foot-long mural for the hospital, entitled Four Seasons (1959). ‘Whithorn’ was translated from drawing to textile by the Edinburgh Weavers, who were known for producing cutting-edge designs by leading artists.

Whithiorn textile, 1961, screen-printed linen, 28.1 x 12.5 cm

The textile design was bought in 2006, for £5,000 from the London art collector Francesca Galloway by Fermanagh District Council with a contribution from The Art Fund with the assistance of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. While the design could be read as hinting at the colours of stone and the early circular headed crosses of Whithorn, there is unfortunately no firm evidence of Scott visiting the town or of who gave the pattern its name. It is also not known how many metres of the fabric were printed for the hospital but the repeated motif is quite small, about 6 x6 cm, so the overall effect of the pattern would have been of verticals, dashes of black and white contrasting with the bands of brown.

However, in fact the original design was to scale and a recently discovered photograph of the work of the Edinburgh Weavers at Scottish Council of Industrial Design exhibition in 1961 shows the textile hanging to in the far left of the photograph. It is clear from this that the original, two circle repeat covered the width of the fabric.

 (With thanks to Mr Hugh Mann for this image.)

Goodhart-Rendel’s Inspiration

The recently published Burgh Survey, ‘Historic Whithorn’, which is reviewed elsewhere in this Blog, describe the St Martin and St Ninian’s Church on George Street as, “rather formal and old-fashioned, as one might expect of this Arts and Crafts architect from London.” In 2010, the 50th anniversary of its completion, it is worth investigating this view of the church.

St Martin and St Ninian’s Church Whithorn

Certainly the present building has none of the modernist drama of the Scottish architect Sir Basil Spence’s first proposals for the church prepared in 1950. His design contains several elements later developed for his masterpiece, Coventry Cathedral but the large pilgrimage chapel he envisaged for Whithorn was beyond the scale needed for worship in the town and, with its cloistered courtyard and linked presbytery, would have required considerable funding.

The architect who fell heir to the work in the late 1950’s was Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel. He was twenty years older than Spence but had built only a handful of buildings in England before designing what would be his final church in Whithorn. Born in Cambridge in 1887, he was a classics don who first studied music before taking up architecture in 1909. At the death of his grandfather, Baron Rendel, he assumed the family name. Highly respected in the profession, Goodhart-Rendel became President of the Architectural Association, Slade Professor of Fine Art, Oxford, and President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. His books on architecture were very influential and he was considered the greatest authority on English 19th century architecture. Drawing from this academic background Goodhart-Rendel found his concept for Whithorn church.

The ancient pilgrimage route, Camino de Santiago de Compostela, passes though Oviedo the capital of Asturias in Northern Spain. Here, in the early 8th century, Alfonso II built the church of Santullano. Its front elevation with formal symmetry, sloping roofs, bellcote and circular windows clearly provided inspiration for Goodhart-Rendel. A design source made more fitting with its location on Europe’s most important pilgrimage route. But, in echoing this thousand year old church, did Goodhart-Rendel’s design really deserve the epithet “old-fashioned” used in the Burgh Survey?

Church of Santullano, Oviedo

Frederick William MacMonnies - a son of Whithorn

William MacMonnies was a native of Whithorn. He emigrated to the United States and made a fortune in the grain business which he lost during the civil war. William married Juliana Eudora West, who was a relation of Benjamin West the history painter and President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Their son, born in 1865, was Frederick William MacMonnies who became a member of the great trio of late 19th century American sculptors with Daniel Chester French and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Indeed, it was the studio of Augustus Saint-Gaudens which Frederick entered as an apprentice in 1880. Four years later he left for Paris to study sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts, winning the highest award given to foreign students twice. This encouraged him to open a studio in Paris where he began to create some of his most famous sculptures which he submitted annually to the Paris Salon. In Paris, he married a fellow American artist, Mary Louise Fairchild.

In 1889 he was awarded an Honourable Mention at the Salon for his Diana and this led to important American commissions, including the Nathan Hale memorial (above) and the decorative Pan fountain sculpture (below) for "Rohallion" the New Jersey mansion of banker Edward Adams, who opened for him a social circle of art-appreciating New Yorkers.

Until the outbreak of World War I, when he gave up his grand household establishment in Paris, Macmonnies travelled annually to the United States to see dealers and patrons, returning to Paris to work on his commissions.

In 1891 he was awarded the commission for the centerpiece of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The sculture of Columbia in her Grand Barge of State, in the vast central fountain of the Court of Honour, was truly the iconic figure at the heart of the American Beaux-Arts movement. This large decorative fountain became the focal point at the Exposition and established MacMonnies as one of the important sculptors of the time.

As their fortunes improved, Frederick and Mary MacMonnies moved to Giverny, a few miles from Paris and a budding artists’ colony established by Claude Monet.

Claude Monet, Poppy Field at Giverny, 1885, oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm

In fact MacMonnies became an intimate friend of Monet, in part through his long residency in the village. Frederick and Mary rented various villas before finally converting and settling in Le Mourier, ironically with his father’s connection with Whithorn, this was the village priory! There they became known to their friends as ‘the MacMonastery’. In the grounds of their house they developed a formal terraced garden which, some argued, came to rival Monet’s own. MacMonnies worked on his sculpture in a barn in the gardens, when not at his studio in Paris, while Mary worked in a studio inside the house, which also doubled as their daughters Berthe’s nursery.

Mary MacMonnies, Baby Berthe in Highchair with Toys, 1898

Mary MacMonnies, Dans la Nursery (Painting Atelier at Giverny), 1898

They had three children: Berthe (1895), Marjorie (1897), and Ronald (1899), who died of meningitis two years later. The couple were divorced in 1908, and he married his former student Alice Jones in 1910.

Louise Mary Kamp, Frederick MacMonnies in his Studio, 1908

MacMonnies lived out most of his life as an expatriate in France, had only one solo exhibition during his life, and died of pneumonia in relative obscurity in 1937.

Frederick MacMonnies, Self Portrait, 1896

Further details of his life are on this site:

http://brooklynbeforenow.blogspot.com/2010/10/thank-you-frederick-macmonnies.html

Oskar Kokoschka and "Doris and the Cat"

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), was one of the greatest figurative painters of the twentieth century.

During the Second World War Oskar Kokoschka and his wife Olda were emigrants in Britain. From 1941 to 1945 the couple spent several weeks each summer in the Machars of Galloway as guests of the wealthy industrialist Emil Korner. Kokoschka had been friendly with the Korner family since his young days in Vienna and his stays at the House of Elrig, a few miles from Whithorn, were times of untroubled artistic productivity.

In August and September 1945, he painted a series of watercolours showing Doris with a cat on her lap. Doris was a young relative of the host who spent her summer holidays at Elrig. “She was always pleased when she could get out of the housework by modelling with the cat for Kokoschka. Her task was to hold onto the cat who was always trying to bolt", Olda Kokoschka recalled in 1991.

The great fascination which the subject 'girl with cat' held for Kokoschka is shown in the way that he use these sketches for his last oil painting of 1973–76.

Hew Lorimer's sculpture in Whithorn

Hew Lorimer (1907 – 1993) is one of Scotland's best-known sculptors though his work at Whithorn is often overlooked. The creator of some of the most prominent large-scale work of the second half of the twentieth century, in June of 1993 he received a papal knighthood in recognition of his sculptures for the Church.

Awarded the OBE in 1986 for services to architecture and conservation, he had been made an honorary Doctor of Laws at Dundee University three years earlier. One of his major works is the relief panel of the saint on St Francis' Church in Dundee, completed in the 1940s, and in 1986 he completed a crucifixion for the university chapel, one of his last works.

Other famous works include the seven allegorical figures which decorate the facade of the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, sculpted in their places over three years in the early 1950s. During the same period he completed the 27ft Our Lady of the Isles on South Uist in partnership with Maxwell Allan.

The Whithorn Crucifix was sculpted in 1959and is sited above the Pilgrimage Altar at the rear of the Roman Catholic Church to SS. Ninian, Martin and John on George Street. The figure of Christ looks out over open fields to the Solway Firth. Sadly it has not weathered well and poor stone cleaning in 1997 has added to the loss of some detail. Despite this the crucifix retains a strong emotional power. Hew Lorimer had completed a similar firure, the sculpture of Christ the King, for the Dawson mausoleum and Chapel in St Ninian's Burial Ground, Fochabers.

Born in Edinburgh, son of the distinguished architect Sir Robert Lorimer, Hew Lorimer was educated at Loretto School and Edinburgh College of Art. After graduating in 1934, he entered an apprenticeship with the sculptor Eric Gill in London. Following the Second World War he restored Kellie Castle, Pittenweem, Fife, which his family had occupied for more than a century, living there with his family until his wife's death in 1970.

Until his retirement Hew Lorimer remained as custodian of the castle, which came into the care of the National Trust for Scotland. He was Fife representative of the trust for many years and originated the Little Houses Scheme which saw the trust extending its preservation work to smaller homes, one of which was the Pend House in Whithorn. In 2009, due to funding difficulties, the National Trust for Scotland closed Kellie Castle to the public.


Sir Robert Lorimer, Hew’s father, carried out alterations to Galloway House creating an opulent entrance hall and adding extensions to the exterior in 1909.

Whithorn Library

Whithorn Library, opened in 1911, was designed by the Newton Stewart architect, Alexander Young. The front elevation, in an Arts and Crafts style, is rendered in drydash with terra-cotta brick facings, brick detailing in blue and with a cast concrete door lintel carrying the date and name.

The idea of founding a library for Whithorn appears to have begun in 1896 chiefly through the work of Alex MacFie and J.J. Colquhoun with the backing of Charles Hawthorn, the Provost at the time. A public meeting in October that year unanimously backed the proposal and a committee was elected with McFie as chairman and Colquhoun as secretary. A number of women present offered to collect subscriptions and were so successful that as library was opened two months later in the side-rooms of the New Town Hall, with over 200 books and 100 members.

A further 100 books were added each year and the Ferguson Bequest contributed further volumes. By the end of 1905 space was becoming a problem and the committee approached the family of the late Charles Lockhart of Pittsburgh. He had been a native of Whithorn and made his fortune as one of the founders of the Standard Oil Company which later became Esso. The family agreed to subscribe £300 on condition that a further £200 was raised from another source. A weekend bazaar was held in the New Town Hall on August 1907 and over £300 was raised. However, no suitable premises could be found in Whithorn at the time and the committee decided to temporary re-locate the library to the larger ‘supper-room’ at the rear of the Town Hall.

 Mr Johnston-Stewart, local landowner of Glasserton Estate , offered the site of a old building opposite the Town Hall in St John Street where the present library now stands. It was Mrs Johnston-Stewart who opened the Library on 29th November, 1911. She was presented with a gold key inscribed with the date and her name as a souvenir of the occasion.

When the building opened it had 2,200 books, with space for 800 more, a reading room and a recreation room to the rear. As recreation, 2 billiard tables were installed. One, a full-sized Burroughs and Watt’s table gifted by Rear-Admiral Johnston-Stewart, and the other, a smaller Ashcroft table. At the back of the recreation area was a raised dais for card tables.

The building re-opened in 1995 after extensive refurbishment but the façade, that featured in the film ‘The Wicker Man', was left virtually intact with the exception of a recently added wheelchair ramp. The Library appeared as Summerisle Library in the movie. The exterior shot also showed the children of Summerisle chanting, 'We carry death out of the village'!

Modern Dance from Whithorn

“There has yet to be a comprehensive survey of modern British dance as a continuing tradition…The result of this neglect could be interpreted that there was ‘nothing going on’ in modern dance in Britain before the importation of the Graham* technique from America in the 1960s.”
 “Free dancers at the turn of the twentieth-century such as Isadora Duncan and Maud Allan* generated a British movement of “Helenic” dancers among whom Margaret Morris was the most radical”

(Larraine Nicholas, Dancing in the Margins, from Rethinking Dance History: A Reader, ed. Alexandra Carter, London: Routledge, 2004)

Celtic Ballet

One dancer who played a very active part in the development of modern dance came from the Machars of Galloway. Ronnie Curran grew up at Monrieth, a few miles from Whithorn. Taking dance classes locally, his abilities were clear from a very early age. When he was 11, Ronnie was seen by the Countess of Galloway who also recognised his talent and later supported his training; first in Glasgow under Margaret Morris with Celtic Ballet, then in Manchester with Lisa Ullmann, Sylvia B. Bodmer and Rudolph Laban, “the father of modern dance”. Ronnie later studied with Hans Zullig at the Folkwang School, Essen , Germany.

In 1950, at the age of 20, Ronnie was approached by Sadler’s Wells Ballet but he turned down the offer in order to be one of the founding members of the British Dance Theatre Company. At the time Ronnie said, “The work I am doing is very different from the classical and I do not aim to be a classical dancer. I do not want to have any specific style… My plans are to work with this company and see it grow. I hope it will become a huge organisation and I would like very much to be there to help.”

British Dance Theatre started from the Art of Movement Studio in Manchester but it rehearsed for its first 1951 tour in the hall in Monrieth and went on to perform in Kilmarnock, Newton Stewart, Stranraer and Kirkcudbright. In Newton Stewart, “the audience loved Ronnie, for they saw in him a future star of the ballet, but they also fell in love with the whole Company’s performance.” (Galloway Gazette, June 1951) Dancing barefoot with Ronnie were Sally Archbutt, Allison Buchan, Margaret Fox, Sheila Urquart, Julia Mason and Warren Lamb. They performed 7 pieces, danced to a diverse range of music from Grieg to the South American compositions of Lecuona and Barroso and the blues of Duke Ellington. The pieces took daring contemporary themes such as the guerrilla leader tortured by a prison warder in “And Tomorrow Comes”, the sadness of a childless couple in “Born of Desire” and, in contrast, a lighter, joyful dance in “Bobbysoxers”.
Although first associated with ballet and modern dance in Scotland, Ronnie Curran went on to perform hundreds of dance numbers for television but it was in the satirical revue "For Amusement Only", which played for three years in London's West End, which established him.

Ronnie also appeared in feature films including "I Gotta Horse", "Masque of the Red Death", one of the best horror films ever made, and "Shot in the Dark", possibly the best of the Pink Panther films. For a time he was a visiting lecturer in Further Education working with PE teachers and, at Bromley College, training student TV cameramen. Ronnie was a founder member and principal dancer with West Country Ballet performing to great reviews at the Edinburgh Festival in the early 1960’s. This ballet company, under the directorship of Peter Darrell, later formed the nucleolus of Scottish Ballet.

This year as Scottish Ballet proudly celebrates its 40th anniversary, it is a great pity that the often groundbreaking achievements of dancers like Ronnie Curran have been overshadowed by later events and personalities. Indeed, the concept of taking popular music and dancing to contemporary themes, exhibited, for example, in the recent ballets by Michael Clark at this years Edinburgh Festival, were being put into practice by Ronnie Curran and others at Monrieth and Newton Stewart almost 60 years ago!


* Martha Graham, Isadora Duncan and Maud Allen were all of Scottish descent.