The extraordinary life of Aberdeenshire-born painter and printmaker James McBey (1883–1959) is explored in a new exhibition which opens at Aberdeen Art Gallery tomorrow (Saturday 11 February). The exhibition is co-curated by author and journalist Alasdair Soussi and Madeline Nehring, Team Leader – Collections at Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums. It borrows its title from the first biography of the artist, Shadows and Light – The Extraordinary Life of James McBey, written by Alasdair Soussi and published by Scotland Street Press in December 2022.
McBey's colourful – and often complicated – life of art, travelling and love affairs is shown through exhibits that tell his story, from his birth in Foveran in Aberdeenshire, to his death in post-war Morocco. Featuring diary entries, personal objects and artworks Shadows and Light shares his life lived in Scotland, London, the United States of America and North Africa. It lays bare an international Scot who blazed a trail across the globe, and who lived according to his own rules. A self-taught artist, McBey rose above his beginnings as the illegitimate son of a blacksmith’s daughter, his mother’s suicide and his work as a bank clerk in Aberdeen to become the internationally-celebrated printmaking heir to Rembrandt and Whistler.
Alasdair Soussi drew on Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums’ collection of McBey material when researching his biography. This collection, bequeathed by the artist’s widow Marguerite, is one of the largest in the world. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see the most recent addition to the collection, the portrait of Vessie Owens which dates from the 1940s. Despite having largely devoted the 1930s to a life in Morocco, James and Marguerite spent the duration of the Second World War living in America. In 1940, McBey visited his brother-in-law, Arthur, in North Carolina, where he sketched seven-year-old Vessie Owens. The finished oil portrait was purchased this year with support from the National Fund for Acquisitions and the Mrs McBey Fund.
Councillor Martin Greig, Aberdeen City Council’s culture spokesperson, said, “The work of local artist James McBey gives enormous pleasure to many and he deserves to be better known. It is good to promote and display his creative output in this new exhibition. It is a great opportunity to see some of the wonderful items from the archive. Aberdeen Art Gallery is the main centre for McBey research, holding the the largest collection of his material in the world. I am really delighted that the gallery has been able to acquire McBey's splendid portrait of Vessie Owens. This is an excellent and welcome gain for the city."
Alasdair Soussi, McBey’s biographer and co-curator of exhibition, said: “When I first came across McBey around ten years ago during my work as a journalist, I was awestruck. Why hadn't I heard of this Scotsman who painted Lawrence of Arabia during his commission as Britain's official war artist in the Middle East during the First World War, whose creative talents led him to become one of the most talked-about artists on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1920s and 1930s and whose difficult past haunted him until the day he died in his beloved Morocco? With my book and accompanying exhibition I hope to reveal the man behind the remarkable art and to re-assert McBey's place as one the 20th century's most accomplished creative figures.”
Alasdair Soussi will give a talk on Saturday 15 April at 2pm in the Art Gallery’s Cowdray Hall, which is supported by the Friends of Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums. Tickets cost £6 and will be available to book at www.aagm.co.uk from 1 March.
Shadows and Light – the Extraordinary Life of James McBey
11 February – 28 May 2023
Aberdeen Art Gallery, Schoolhill, Aberdeen
Admission free
www.aagm.co.uk
The National Fund for Acquisitions, administered with Scottish Government funding by National Museums Scotland, contributes towards the acquisition of objects for the collections of museums, galleries, libraries and archives throughout Scotland. Find out more about the work of the Fund on the NFA webpage http://www.nms.ac.uk/about-us/services-and-expertise/national-fund-for-acquisitions/