oil on canvas, signed and dated '55
framed

Note: James Morrison McChlery, known as ‘Morris’, was born in 1924 in the west end of Glasgow. He was educated at Hillhead High School and Glasgow Academy. During the war, he began to paint seriously and trained himself in watercolours and oils. He was inspired by a wide range of painters, including the Impressionists, abstract artists such as Miro and Klee, and the Scottish Colourists. After the war he established links with other artists in and around Glasgow, including Alan Fletcher, Bet Low, Margaret Oliver Brown, Pierre Lavale, and others. In particular, he became a good friend and protégée of the colourist J. D. Fergusson, who returned to Scotland after the war with his wife Margaret Morris intending to support the development of the arts in Scotland. Fergusson was the active patron of the ‘New Scottish Group’ of young artists, and Morris was the secretary for several years, organising exhibitions and sales with other artists. They were the first people to hang pictures for sale on the railings of the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow, which was remembered for years and which is still revived from time to time He sketched and painted constantly, abroad and in Scotland. To make a living he joined the family firm of James, Morrison, McChlery & Co, auctioneers and valuers, who traded from the Crown Halls in Sauchiehall Street. During his work there he developed his knowledge and expertise, and reputation, in art and objects d’art, in which prosperous Glasgow families were well endowed. Before his untimely death in a car accident in 1969, Morris, produced a huge body of work of great variety: studies of industrial post-war Glasgow, glowing Scottish landscapes, vibrant impressionistic still lifes, and diverse abstracts.