Sydney Goodsir Smith, artist and art critic

Riach, A. and Moffat, A. (2020) Sydney Goodsir Smith, artist and art critic. In: McCaffery, R. (ed.) Sydney Goodsir Smith, Poet: Essays on His Life and Work. Series: Scottish cultural review of language and literature (30). Brill Rodopi: Leiden and Boston, pp. 217-236. ISBN 978-90-04-42510-1

Abstract

This chapter introduces Smith as an artist, ambitious from childhood to paint and draw, identifying three main periods: his satirical drawings in Europe before the Second World War, his drawings and paintings in Scotland after the war, including his illustrations for his major poem-sequence, Under the Eildon Tree, and his drawings and paintings from Plockton and the Scottish Highlands. It then presents a selection of his writings as an art critic from The Scotsman newspaper, 1960-67, covering such artists as Anne Redpath, William MacTaggart, William Gillies, John Maxwell, Denis Peploe and Joan Eardley, and his criticism and appraisal of the Royal Scottish Academy and the younger artists John Bellany and Alexander Moffat, the Hugh MacDiarmid portrait by R.H. Westwater and exhibitions of new work from Italy and Nigeria, and comes to some conclusions about Smith's predilections and skills as an art critic, and his vision of the interconnectedness of the arts.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Moffat, Mr Alexander and Riach, Professor Alan
• Authors: Riach, A., and Moffat, A.
• Subjects: N Fine Arts > NC Drawing Design Illustration; N Fine Arts > ND Painting; P Language and Literature > PE English; P Language and Literature > PR English literature
• College/School: College of Arts > School of Critical Studies > Scottish Literature
• Publisher: Brill Rodopi
• ISBN: 978-90-04-42510-1