RAE, Barbara

Barbara Rae large mixed media watercolour, signed and dated 1979.

Description

Barbara Rae, large rare early painting in mixed media, 1979.

Signed, titled  ‘Glenuig‘  and dated ’79 in pencil in lower right corner. Made using pencil, pastel and water colour. It has been removed from the original frame to assess its condition. Originally framed by ‘Aiken Dott & Son’ in Edinburgh. The painting is on wove paper and was adhered to the mount with masking tape on the verso, some of which has been removed but not all.  On the verso of the sheet there is discolouration along the top edge which could be due to the paint or has suffered from damp issues. There is a water drip in the lower right corner which was made by the artist. There are two closed marginal tears in the left margins and the top corner, 1 x 4cm , missing. Please examine the photographs carefully. A new frame needed.

Sheet size 50 x 67cm (20 x 26.5 inches)

Item details

Extracts from ‘Barbara Rae’ by Bill Hare, Andrew Lambirth and Gareth Wardell, page 11. ‘I hadn’t worked on the West Coast before. It was so much more interesting than east coast fishing villages. So I started doing these craggy things to do with rocks, history monuments, standing stones and so on, and that kicked off a whole series from 1976-85, working up and down the west coast.’…. .’I was constantly going up and down to Glenuig and Achilitbuie and the summer Isles, and I was deeply entranced by all of that.’

Barbara Rae was 36 years of age when she painted this piece and was teaching in the Glasgow School of Art. Her early paintings tended to be quite subdued. It was in 1986 when she got a grant from the Scottish Arts Council that she was able to work for three month in Santa Fe and Central Spain. In Santa Fe where the light was different and she had a larger studio space and she could experiment with acrylic and paints that her work changed. She also met in  Ron Pokrasso and starts doing monotypes in his workshop in Santa Fe.

Glenuig is a small village in Moidart, Lochaber, Highland, on the west coast of Scotland. It is around 30 miles west of Fort William and 20 miles from Ardnamurchan Point.