Speaker: Pat Clark
4 August 2020
The Scottish artist Charles H. Mackie RSA RSW was a good friend to Edward Hornel, now better known as one of the ‘Glasgow Boys’. Kirkcudbright proved a source of inspiration to both artists and their correspondence sheds light on this overlooked friendship. The Galloway countryside was the subject of the murals he executed for Patrick Geddes at Ramsay Garden in Edinburgh. Going further afield,visits to Brittany and Paris brought Mackie into contact with artists such as Paul Sérusier and the Nabis in Paris. He was shown round Gauguin’s studio by the artist himself and brought the first Vuillard painting back to Scotland. His travels in France and Italy are reflected in the art he produce and the range of media he embraced:oil,watercolour woodblock prints, tooled leatherwork and sculpture. The forthcoming anniversary of his death will be the occasion for a major retrospective exhibition of his work at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh.
Profile
Pat was a teacher of history and politics for over 30 years and was latterly an ISI Inspector and Headteacher of a secondary school. In 2004-2006 she appointed as VSO Education Adviser to an non-governmental organsiation (NGO) in Cambodia. Her lectures to Khmer colleagues, fellow volunteers, sister NGOs and representatives from the Ministry of Education widened her experience. Following the publication of her book People, Places and Piazzas. The Life and Art of Charles Mackie in 2016 she has lectured to audiences in Perth, Edinburgh, Bearsden, Dunfermline, Falkirk and Kirkcudbright as well as the Staithes Art Festival. In May 2019 she gave the Annual Edinburgh Philosophical Institution Lecture.