Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Satires of Highland Gatherings; Raising the caber etc., circa 1935

£1,500.00

SKU: 7872
Pastel on paper, tipped to support
Signed 
9 1/2 x 19 1/4 in. (24 x 49 cm)

Presentation:
framed

Size:
Height – 24cm x Width – 49cm

1 in stock

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
The Artist’s Daughters

A group of six satirical watercolours dated 1935 puncture the shortbread, haggis and bagpipe clichés of his countrymen. Games in Full Swing, Heavy Events, Dancing and Piping, March of the Clansmen, Highland Society and The Wedding of the Chief, all at the fictional Strathbannock Highland Gathering, are reminiscent of the cartoonist H.M.Bateman in their ability to deflate social pretentions. Douglas submitted them to Punch but they were rejected as too severe’.

Disclaimer:
Modern British Art Gallery are continually seeking to improve the quality of the information on their website. We actively undertake to post new and more accurate information on our stable of artists.

We openly acknowledge the use of information from other sites including Wikipedia, artbiogs.co.uk and Tate.org and other public domains. We are grateful for the use of this information and we openly invite any comments on how to improve the accuracy of what we have posted.

THE ARTIST

Douglas Percy Bliss
Douglas Percy
Bliss
1900 - 1984

Douglas Percy Bliss (28 January 1900’11 March 1984) was a Scottish painter and art conservationist. Bliss’s family was from Northamptonshire, England. Bliss himself was born in Karachi, India (now in Pakistan). Bliss was raised in Edinburgh and educated at George Watson’s College from 1906 to 1917.

Bliss left school in 1917 to join the Highland Light Infantry until the end of WW1

In 1922 he was awarded an M.A. in English Literature by the University of Edinburgh. He had studied Art History in his first year. Bliss then studied painting at the Royal College of Art in London. In his post-graduate year he studied engraving. In 1925 the Oxford University Press published his engravings illustrating Border ballads. Bliss then received a number of commissions, including a commission to write A History of Wood Engraving. This work received such critical acclaim that Bliss’ reputation as an artist was overshadowed by his reputation as a critic and teacher.

In 1928 Bliss married Phyllis Dodd, who was a painter. Encouraged by his wife Bliss took up painting again, painting oil and watercolour landscapes in Scotland and England. Coincidentally his paintings record the end of an era of small-holding. He also painted some urban scenes just before the towns were transformed by high rise and high-density buildings.

In the 1930s Bliss established the Blackheath Society, which continues today to attempt to protect the amenity of life in south-east London. In the 1930s he taught at the Blackheath School of Art and was the London art critic for The Scotsman.

In 1941 Bliss joined the RAF and was stationed in Scotland. After the war he was appointed Director of the Glasgow School of Art. He referred to Glasgow as “the greatest industrial city in the Empire”. Bliss was instrumental in saving much of the Art Nouveau architecture and furniture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He continued as Director from 1946 until 1964. When he completed his period as Director, Glasgow School of Art was listed by Whitaker’s Almanack among the six top Art Schools in Britain.

Bliss’s own art was exhibited around Britain. There was an exhibition of his work in the Glasgow School of Art, in the northern hemisphere summer of 1998.

Much of the work of Bliss’s youth has been lost. Most of his engravings were unpublished before the beginning of the War in 1939 and his entire collection was stolen during the Blitz. Decades later sixteen degraded blocks were identified at an auction. Most split when printing was attempted.

MORE PICTURES BY ARTIST

SKU: 12083

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Pictor Ignotus

£1,500.00

SKU: 12082

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

David Scott in Rome

£1,500.00

SKU: 10525

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Paolo Ucello unable to get to bed for “that sweet thing Pespective”, c. 1935

£2,500.00

SKU: 10524

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Titian

£3,750.00

SKU: 10487

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Courbet and Baudelaire

£3,950.00

SKU: 7872

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Satires of Highland Gatherings; Raising the caber etc., circa 1935

£1,500.00

SKU: 7873

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

A Mighty Hunter before the Lord

£2,750.00

SKU: 7845

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Satires of Highland Gatherings: The Wedding in the Highlands, circa 1935

£1,500.00

SKU: 7846

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Satires of Highland Gatherings; The Strathbannock Highland Gathering. March of the Clansmen, circa 1935

£1,500.00

SKU: 7848

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Satires of Highland Gatherings; Highland Society at the Strathbannock Gathering, circa 1935

£1,500.00

SKU: 7849

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Satires of Highland Gatherings; ‘Heavy Events’ at the Strathbannock Highland Gathering, circa 1935

£1,500.00

SKU: 7844

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Satires of Highland Gatherings; Dancing and Piping at the Strathbannock Highland Gathering, 1936

£1,500.00

SKU: 7834

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Things that go bump in the Night, May 1931

£7,500.00

SKU: 7828

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Sheep on the Roof, Barra (Barraigh), Scotland

£2,950.00

SKU: 7665

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Man carrying a sack over his shoulder, ascending the steps of a barn., circa 1930

£1,600.00

SKU: 7632

Douglas Percy Bliss (1900 - 1984)

Boy Scaring Crows, 1925

£1,800.00