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Description: | 51.0 x 43.0 s. b.r. "McClure" CRE McCLURE, David; (Scottish; b.1926) David McClure was born in Kinlochwinnoch, the son of a furniture designer. He initially read English and History at the University of Glasgow until his studies were curtailed by war service - in a coal mine! His dispiriting occupation may have spurred his creative instincts, and he at last embarked upon a Fine Art degree course at Edinburgh College of Art, where his contemporaries included Elizabeth Blackadder, John Houston and David Michie (Anne Redpath's son.) Contact with such a fine technician as Redpath must have confirmed his love of colour, which was always at the core of his own work. After a scholarship tour of Spain and Italy, he returned to teach at Edinburgh College, attaining a Fellowship there in 1955. His professional career was completed by his acceptance, in 1957, of a position at Dundee's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, where he succeeded Alberto Morrocco as Head of painting.
As a painter, McClure exploits a sure technique in the service of cryptic imagery. Along with John Maxwell, he seems to have absorbed much of the mystical allure of the great French symbolist Odilon Redon. His 'Children's Tale' of 1978 (Private Collection) evokes a disquieting otherworld of entities floating in a deep lavender-blue void - Redon's flowers in a Delft vase, a minuscule buoyant cow, a girl-child anchored at the right. Most incongruously of all, Simone Martini's equestrian Guidoriccio da Fogliano prances along this enchanted champain of the artist's imagination. McClure's iconic exploitation of the fourteenth-century Italian condottiere would indicate that his early history reading continued to fuel his invention throughout his artistic development. The historical equestrian motif appears again in the Department's little 'Crusader', which conjures, with the utmost economy of means, similar Medieval associations. The Crusader, a surpliced and mitred churchman rather than a soldier, raises aloft the type of hieratic religious banner which McClure may have seen in church processions during his sojourns abroad. Intermingling with the summarising technique which suggests the main forms are passages of contrasting delicacy, notably present in the stipplings of white which suggest the lace trim of the holy man's vestment. This alliance of breadth of handling and precision, always reinforced by astutely judged colour applications, has always been a notable feature of his style.
Text © Marion Lawson, History of Art Department, University of Glasgow 1984. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | FIGURE : ANIMAL : HORSE : CAMPUS : CAMPUS : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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