Tanagra and landscape

James Cowie was born into a farming family in Aberdeenshire. He studied at Glasgow School of Art 1912-14, after which he embarked on a teaching career which spanned thirty years. His first post was that of Art Master at Bellshill Academy, near Glasgow 1915-1935, where he essentially turned the classroom into his studio and did much of his finest work; his pupils became his models and the studio casts became his props (although the Tanagra figurines, a favourite subject, were his own property). After this he was Head of the Painting Department at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen and was Principal at Hospitalfield College near Arbroath. He eventually moved to Edinburgh where in the 1940s he became a full Member and Secretary of the Royal Scottish Academy. Throughout his artistic career he stood apart from his contempories; he was less interested in colour than tone, and rejected bravura to pursue effects of subtlety and mystery.