This hand -printed Stirling Christmas card of 2005 is one of many in the Stirling Christmas exhibition at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, and is the work of artist Owain Kirby.
Although Owain was born in Greenock and spent his childhood in other parts of Scotland, after graduating with a first- class honours degree from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, he came to live in Stirling and has spent his creative life here.
Since 1996, he has provided illustrative images to accompany exhibitions and publications in the Stirling Smith, from the letterhead onwards. Having an artist with an understanding of history who is committed to producing quality illustrations is an asset to any museum. Having one who lives in and loves Stirling is beyond price. His illustrations contributed to the success of the City Bid in 2002. The Smith has benefitted with his illustrations produced for the Wallace exhibition (1997), Ailie’s Garden (2002), the George Buchanan exhibition (2006) and many others, including the new display for the world’s oldest football.
Owain Kirby is part of the contemporary arts scene in Stirling, working without personal recognition. The compensation is that he is one of the few artists who does not need to sign his work, as his style is unmistakeable.
The Stirling Christmas exhibition in the Stirling Smith contains many iconic images from the recent past. This photograph was taken from a bus on the Glasgow Road, Stirling, on a grim winter’s day, giving the bus driver’s view. The photographer was A D S MacPherson (1913 – 2009), a freelancer. Living in Stirling, he took great delight in photographing both the old town and new developments such as the University, which opened in 1967. His work was highly regarded, and his photographs appeared in half page format in the Scotsman and Weekly Scotsman, as well as featuring in their annual calendars. All of his pictures were developed and processed in his home in Stirling. He presented a large collection of his best photographs to the Stirling Smith after his retirement in 1982.
‘Drinka Pinta Milka Day’ was a national Milk Marketing Board campaign which started in 1958 and ran for many years. From 1958 – 1993, they also ran the 1500 mile Round Britain Cycling Race. This came to an end with the deregulation of the market in 1994.
The exhibition is packed with Stirling memories – Stirling Annuals from the Drummond Tract Depot, Stirling Observer Annuals and toys and games from the recent past. As always, admission and parking are free, with closures on 25 – 26 December and 1 -2 January only.
For over 10 years, a group of readers has been meeting at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum under the guidance of Dickens expert Professor Grahame Smith to read the works of Charles Dickens. They have read every work by Dickens and have now moved on to other classics of English literature.
As a special Christmas treat on at 12 noon on 6 December, Learning Officer David Smith and his brother Paul, who is a book binding specialist, will unpick a mystery associated with Dickens’ early career. Charles Dickens became famous at the age of 24 with his first block busting novel The Pickwick Papers. Some of his success was due to the illustrator Robert Seymour (1796-1836) who, following an argument with Dickens, killed himself. The issue of Dickens role and responsibility for this suicide has been hotly contested since.
Pickwick was originally issued in serial form to be bound later by the bookbinder. The original physical structure of the first edition of Pickwick provides clues to this tragedy.
Paul and David Smith will review the evidence on Seymour’s suicide. The real story behind this is not what has been widely assumed.
This is a one off special event. Tickets are limited and booking is advised. Book your place here.
St. Andrew’s Day is officially celebrated as a public holiday in Scotland thanks to the work of Stirling politician Dennis Canavan and his St Andrew’s Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007. The Stirling Smith has celebrated with special events over the years, and next Thursday hosts the book launch of An Eagle in a Hen House, the selected political speeches and writings of R.B.Cunninghame Graham – aristocrat, cowboy, M.P., Marxist, Scottish and Irish nationalist, anti-imperialist, social commentator, women’s rights campaigner, writer, and wit. A friend of William Morris, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Joseph Conrad, he co-founder the first Labour Party with Keir Hardie, and was the first President of the SNP. Author Lachlan Munro has gathered the writings from hundreds of sources and already, the book is a favourite of the many volunteers who staff the Cunninghame Graham Library in the Smith.
It was the poet Hugh MacDiarmid who described Graham, the first socialist in the Westminster Parliament, as being like ‘an eagle in a hen house’. Graham himself described Westminster as ‘The National Gasworks’.
At 12 noon on St Andrew’s day, the Eagle will fly again in Stirling when Lachlan Munro introduces Stirling politicians Sir George Reid, Dennis Canavan, Provost Simpson and a host of others to read from the book. Tickets free, but booking essential. Book your place here.
The photograph of postman John Wardrop Thomson (1883-1962) and his Albert Medal are part of a recent collection of memorabilia gifted to the Stirling Smith by John and Brenda Calderbank of Stockport. The medal was presented by King Edward VII for an extraordinary act of heroism in Stirling Station on 21 October 1905. Postman Thomson was loading mailbags, when passengers shouted about a man lying on the tracks in a dark part of the station and an approaching train. With seconds to spare, John Thomson leapt onto the track and pulled the man, who was very drunk, clear. The passengers thought that both men had been hit, and did not realise the success of the action until the train passed.
John Thomson was featured in the Postman’s Gazette. He went to London for his presentation, and his fellow postmen also presented him with a neat wooden stationery case. The precious items can be seen in a special display in the Stirling Smith.
Mr and Mrs Calderbank had no idea of the heroism of their forebear, until they came to clear the Stirling house of a recently deceased relative. They have decided that the Stirling Smith is the best home for this unique collection of objects so that the story can be remembered.
In 1902, the architect J S Fleming published a book, The Ancient Castles and Mansions of the Stirling Nobility. It had hundreds of drawings, mainly of the buildings in the Top of the Town which have long since been demolished. Another artist, Alexander Douglas Junior, visited some of the buildings featured in the book and made watercolour drawings of them. The Old Coffee House at the end of a close off Bow Street, was one of them.
The building dated from the 17th century but was remembered locally as the headquarters of Bonnie Prince Charlie during his siege of Stirling Castle in January 1746. For many decades, it was the principal hostelry in Stirling, used by farmers on Fridays when coming to the market in Broad Street. It was also the meeting place of the gentlemen of the town. For a time, the horses for the Glasgow and Perth coaches were stabled there, before the modern facilities of the Golden Lion were built in 1786.
J S Fleming examined the building in detail, noting the oak roof, with oak pegs fixing the slates. The main chamber was wood panelled with Ionic columns. This is one of several watercolours found in a Stirling skip by James Hearsum and shared with the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum.
Here is a King Street that none of us have ever known. It is only a small section of the street, but it is tightly packed with businesses. On the left is Angus Ewing, Stabling, then Vance’s Boot and Shoe Warehouse, where a street level entry gives access to Alexander Muirhead’s licenced premises above. Next door is a Hair Cutter and Perfumer, with Lodgings in the tenement above.
The buildings are mixed in style. The 18th century building of the shoe warehouse has its gable end to the street, with crow steps to access the roof. The roof beyond is pantiled and the buildings appear to have grown without much input from either architects or planners, and are far different from the relatively handsome symmetry of King Street today.
The image is not clear as it is a photograph of an original drawing by Mr Rinzinski, a Polish national who taught languages at the Old High School of Stirling. He delighted in drawing vernacular building in the town. Some of the images were photographed by Mr Rodgers (known as the promoter of the Wallace Monument) while in Baillie Christie’s possession, The sketches were returned to the artist and may survive somewhere.
There are many rare and unusual pieces in the Stirling Smith collections, and the Fountain of Helicon is one of them. Time has not been kind to it, and it has been in store since the 1960s. We are currently seeking an appraisal for cleaning and restoration.
This extraordinary work was carved in balsa wood by Peter Cairns while a servant of the Duke of Buccleuch. It took him seven years to carve, working at night and on his days off. Inscribed ‘The Helicon Fount. Begun in Dalkeith Palace’, it was exhibited in many places – the Royal Museum of Scotland, the Paris Exhibition of 1878 and the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1886. Cairns was hailed as the most accomplished wood carver of his day, and his family still have examples of his craft. The piece was bought by a private individual and donated to the Smith in about 1900. As this photo came from D & J McEwen, it may have been displayed in their Port Street window at one time.
Mount Helicon is famed in ancient Greek legend as the place where the springs gave poetic inspiration. One of the springs was created by the hooves of the winged horse Pegasus, one of dozens of figures of Greek legend on this piece.
At the last meeting of the Stirling Smith Trustees, the loan of this painting for four months in 2018 to La Boverie, the new Museum of Fine Arts in Liege, Belgium, was approved. La Boverie, working with the Louvre will present an exhibition on the European Grand Tour, popular with artists and aristocrats in the 18th and 19th centuries. This view of the Forum in Rome was painted by Macpherson (1814 – 1872) in the early 1840s, when he was trying to establish himself as an artist.
This work will be hung with similar views by Schilbach (from the Thorvaldsen Museum, Denmark), Sarrazin de Belmont (from the museum in Tours, France), Eckersberg (National Gallery, London) and Roberts (Birmingham Museum of Art, USA).
The Smith’s painting will be in international company and although the view is familiar to all visitors to Rome, the work is exceptionally rare. Macpherson failed as an artist, and therefore moved into the new art of photography where he had great success. Few paintings by Macpherson survive. La Boverie will be borrowing one of his photographs of the same view from the John Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
The Smith’s painting holds a key message in the global story of the competition between painting and photography in the mid 19th century.
The current Stirling Smith exhibition, supported by the Friends of the Smith, sets out to show how Stirling was painted throughout the ages. Among many old friends are two new additions to the collection, gifted by Annabel Young of Dunblane and painted by the artist B Rounthwaite. Both show Stirling Castle from Raploch and date to just before the Second World War.
This view of the Castle with the houses of Raploch and Charlie Smith’s farm was considered to be one of the great beauty spots of Scotland, as it was painted by many artists over the decades. One of Kelvingrove’s best paintings by David Gauld (1867 – 1936) is of this view, and he painted several for other patrons. Nothing is known of B Rounthwaite, except that his paintings have a relationship to the Stirling Smith, where he may have held some classes, as many artists did. The only certainty is that he was one of hundreds of artists who came to Stirling to capture its beauty on canvas.
The exhibition features work by the great Scottish landscape artists Alexander Nasmyth (1758 – 1840) and Horatio McCulloch (1805 – 1867), as well as ‘Glasgow Boys’ William Kennedy, George Henry and John Lochhead.