Sir Herbert James Gunn R.A.
(1893-1964)
Sir Herbert James Gunn was a landscape and portrait painter. He was born in Glasgow on 30th June, 1893. After studying briefly at the Glasgow and Edinburgh Schools of Art and in 1911 he went to the Académie Julian in Paris where he studied under Jean-Paul Laurens. It was during his time in France that Gunn developed his radical approach to compositional arrangements within his landscape paintings. His often stark palette of grey tones was used to heighten the dramatic placement of forms.
These works were incredibly avant-garde and challenged much of the sentimental landscapes that were still being reproduced by the bulk of commercial Edwardian artists in Britain.
He left Paris at the outbreak of the First World War and initially joined the Artists Rifles. He subsequently received a commission in the 10th Scottish Rifles and saw active service in France.
During the 1920s, he increasingly concentrated on portrait painting and after 1929 he devoted himself exclusively to portraits, exhibiting at the Fine Art Society in the same year. His paintings are on show in a number of galleries and his 1953 portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in her coronation robes is housed in the Royal Collection.
He was elected President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1953, a post he held until his death. He was elected to the Royal Academy as a full academician in 1961 and was knighted for services to painting in 1963. An 80 page catalogue of his work exhibited at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from 3 December to 24 February 1994, was published by National Galleries of Scotland.