Muirhead Bone
Sir Muirhead Bone (23 March 1876 – 21 October 1953) was a Scottish etcher and watercolourist who became known for his depiction of industrial and architectural subjects and his work as a war artist in both the First and Second World Wars. A figure in the last generation of the Etching Revival, Bone's early large and heavily-worked architectural subjects fetched extremely high prices before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 deflated the collectors' market. He was well known, if not notorious, for publishing large numbers of different states of etchings, encouraging collectors to buy several impressions. Bone was an active member of both the British War Memorials Committee in the First World War and the War Artists' Advisory Committee in the Second World War. He promoted the work of many young artists and served as a Trustee of the Tate Gallery, the National Gallery, and the Imperial War Museum. Early life Muirhead Bone was born in Partick, Glasgow. His parents were journalist David Drummond Bone (1841–1911) and Elizabeth Millar Crawford (1847–1886). The Bone and his siblings attended the local Board school and were placed in apprenticeships from the age of fourteen. James Bone, Muirhead Bone's senior by four years, was apprenticed as a newspaper reporter and went on to become the London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian while David Bone, another older brother, joined the navy and eventually became Commander Master of the Anchor Line and was knighted. Muirhead Bone was initially apprenticed as a painter of porcelain and later as an architect's draughtsman and completed a four-year apprenticeship before immediately turning to art. Bone studied at the Glasgow School of Art, initially at evening classes. There he befriended the artist Francis Dodd and his sister Gertrude Helena Dodd, to whom he became engaged in 1898. He began printmaking in 1898, his first known print was a lithograph and he is now better known for his etchings and drypoints. His subject matter was principally related to landscapes and architecture, which included urban construction and demolition sites, Gothic cathedrals and Norman buildings. The collection of his prints held by the British Museum contains a number of works based in South Ayrshire, between 1898 and 1916. In 1900 he tried to run art classes in Ayr, from newly built premises at Wellington Chambers. In 1901 Bone moved to London, where he met William Strang, Dugald MacColl and Alphonse Legros, and became a member of the New English Art Club. He held his first solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in 1902. Bone was also a member of the Glasgow Art Club with which he exhibited. In 1903, Bone had finally achieved enough financial success as an artist that he could afford to marry Gertrude, after a five-year engagement. They moved to Chiswick and had their first son, Stephen, in 1904, and their second son, Gavin, in 1907. Bone continued to visit Ayr, producing the notable prints of Ayr Prison in 1905 and a series based on the view of the Ballantrae Road