* DAVID MCCLURE RSA RSW (SCOTTISH 1926 - 1998), FLOWERS IN A CHINESE VASE

oil on canvas, signed, titled verso framed image size 55cm x 40cm, overall size 75cm x 60cm Exhibition label verso: 1995, Bohun Gallery, Henley-on-Thames. Note: David McClure was Born in Lochwinnoch to a family of furniture designers, McClure initially undertook studies at the University of Glasgow in English & History, where he also developed a keen interest in philosophy. His studies were interrupted by war service, during which he was conscripted into the coal mines as a ‘Bevin Boy.’ Throughout the War he painted and drew prolifically, which appears to have consolidated his interest in the visual arts, and in 1947 he enrolled at Edinburgh College of Art. It was here that he established many important connections in the Scottish arts scene, not only in his contemporaries including James Cumming, William Baillie, John Houston, Elizabeth Blackadder and David Michie, but also through exposure to the influence of major figures such as Anne Redpath, William Gillies, John Maxwell, William MacTaggart and Robert Henderson Blyth. McClure’s work aligns with this wider twentieth-century Scottish painting tradition characterised by a strong use of colour and confident handling of paint. An accomplished student, he was rewarded with travelling scholarships which took him to Italy, Sicily and Spain. These experiences would prove to be formative and had a profound influence on McClure’s rich use of colour and receptiveness to Folk Art for the rest of his career. It also introduced the young artist to the importance of painting while travelling, both around the UK and abroad. Within this collection are a group of works from an important painting trip to Millport that McClure made in the winter of 1955/56 with his wife and young son. He managed to capture some of the landscape of the island as planned, but the particularly bitter weather conditions prolonged their time inside and resulted in these striking pen and ink drawings of hedgerow gatherings set inside their rented cottage. In contrast, an invitation from the Norwegian government allowed the family to spend two months of a hot summer there in 1963, where McClure painted his wife and muse Joyce in ‘Figure and Flowers.’