Lot Essay
Duncan is one of the unsung heroes of the international Symbolist movement. His work was hailed as a revelation when many of the finest examples were seen in the Last Romantics exhibition at the Barbican in 1989, and it remains comparatively little known outside his native Scotland.
Born in Dundee, the son of a cattle dealer, Duncan was studying at the Dundee School of Art by the age of eleven. After three years in London doing hack work for publishers, he continued his studies in Antwerp and Dusseldorf and spent a winter in Rome, where he developed an ardent admiration for Michelangelo. Back in Dundee, he became a member of the local Graphic Arts Association, and in 1898-9 he shared a studio with the brilliant but short-lived George Dutch Davidson (1879-1901), whom he greatly influenced. However from 1892 he was mainly based in Edinburgh, where he was closely associated with Patrick Geddes, biologist, town planner, and prophet of the Celtic Revival. Geddes offered him the post of Director of his new art school, and Duncan sought to express Geddes' ideas in a number of mural projects, notably a series of panels illustrating scenes from Celtic history which he painted in the common room of University Hall at Ramsay Lodge. He was also involved with Geddes' influential magazine, The Evergreen. In 1899 he embarked on a tour of America with Geddes, and in 1900 he became Associate Professor of Art at Chicago University, holding the post for two years.
On returning to Scotland he made his home in Edinburgh, where his studio in Torphichen Street and later St. Bernard's Crescent became a centre for a lively group of artists and intellectuals, including Geddes, Mrs Kennedy Fraser, Father John Gray, Lady Margaret Sackville, and such young talents as Eric Robertson, Cecile Walton and Joyce Cary. One of his associates, the novelist Mary Agnes Hamilton, described him in her novel Yes (1914) as 'accumulating unsaleable works which pleased him but not the buyers'. In fact he received many commissions for altarpieces, church murals and stained glass, and was elected ARSA in 1910 and RSA in 1923. He was a great experimenter with techniques and much of his work is in tempera. His subject matter remained rooted in the Celtic Revival and the Pre-Raphaelite tradition, but he also painted 'straight' landscapes in Iona and elsewhere and took a keen interest in the development of modern art. Many regarded him as a mystic, and he confessed to hearing 'fairy music' while he painted. This rather fey quality led him into trouble when he fell in love with and married a girl who believed she had discovered the Holy Grail in a well at Glastonbury; the marriage was not a success and his wife eventually left him, taking herself and her two daughters to South Africa.
Born in Dundee, the son of a cattle dealer, Duncan was studying at the Dundee School of Art by the age of eleven. After three years in London doing hack work for publishers, he continued his studies in Antwerp and Dusseldorf and spent a winter in Rome, where he developed an ardent admiration for Michelangelo. Back in Dundee, he became a member of the local Graphic Arts Association, and in 1898-9 he shared a studio with the brilliant but short-lived George Dutch Davidson (1879-1901), whom he greatly influenced. However from 1892 he was mainly based in Edinburgh, where he was closely associated with Patrick Geddes, biologist, town planner, and prophet of the Celtic Revival. Geddes offered him the post of Director of his new art school, and Duncan sought to express Geddes' ideas in a number of mural projects, notably a series of panels illustrating scenes from Celtic history which he painted in the common room of University Hall at Ramsay Lodge. He was also involved with Geddes' influential magazine, The Evergreen. In 1899 he embarked on a tour of America with Geddes, and in 1900 he became Associate Professor of Art at Chicago University, holding the post for two years.
On returning to Scotland he made his home in Edinburgh, where his studio in Torphichen Street and later St. Bernard's Crescent became a centre for a lively group of artists and intellectuals, including Geddes, Mrs Kennedy Fraser, Father John Gray, Lady Margaret Sackville, and such young talents as Eric Robertson, Cecile Walton and Joyce Cary. One of his associates, the novelist Mary Agnes Hamilton, described him in her novel Yes (1914) as 'accumulating unsaleable works which pleased him but not the buyers'. In fact he received many commissions for altarpieces, church murals and stained glass, and was elected ARSA in 1910 and RSA in 1923. He was a great experimenter with techniques and much of his work is in tempera. His subject matter remained rooted in the Celtic Revival and the Pre-Raphaelite tradition, but he also painted 'straight' landscapes in Iona and elsewhere and took a keen interest in the development of modern art. Many regarded him as a mystic, and he confessed to hearing 'fairy music' while he painted. This rather fey quality led him into trouble when he fell in love with and married a girl who believed she had discovered the Holy Grail in a well at Glastonbury; the marriage was not a success and his wife eventually left him, taking herself and her two daughters to South Africa.