C1900 SYMBOLIST PAINTING OIL ON CANVAS JOHN DUNCAN 1866-1945
Artist – Poss John Duncan 1866 – 1945 (see monogram)
Title - Minerva and the Bull
Medium - Oil on Canvas
Size 122 x 97cm (48 x 38in)
Beautiful late 19th/early 20th century oil on canvas “Minerva and the Bull”. The painting is in good order although it could do with a light clean. It has not been relined or repaired and is slightly loose on its stretcher.
The painting has a monogram at bottom right for the Scottish Symbolist artist John Duncan.
The size of the painting is very much in line with other paintings with similar Subjects by Duncan.
John Duncan (1866–1945) was a Scottish Symbolist painter. Much of his work, apart from portraits, depicted Arthurian legends, Celtic folklore, and other mythological subjects.
In 1892 Duncan moved to Edinburgh to work with the sociologist, botanist and urbanist Patrick Geddes, whom he had met in Dundee. As part of the Celtic Revival movement, Duncan painted
...murals for Geddes''s halls of residence at Ramsay Garden. He also became the principal artist for Geddes''s 1895–1897 seasonal magazine The Evergreen.[2] The magazine also featured work by the Dundee artist Nell Baxter and the celebrated decorative artist Robert Burns.[5] Among other subjects, Duncan depicted Bacchus and Silenus in a mythical scene.[6] Duncan also acted as director of Geddes''s short-lived Old Edinburgh School of Art,[7] and was commissioned by him to design the Witches'' Well in Edinburgh in 1894.[8]
In 1897 Duncan returned to Dundee and exhibited Celtic and Symbolist paintings at the Graphic Arts Association as well as the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Glasgow Institute among others. It was at this time that he painted The Glaive of Light now in the University of Dundee''s collection. He continued to teach art and design, at the Dundee YMCA, the University and the art school at Dundee Technical Institute. He also created Dundee''s first design collective by gathering together a group of young talents who created and exhibited decorative art and design pieces for the Graphic Arts Association, including Nell Baxter, Rosa Baxter, Elizabeth Burt and Duncan''s sister Jessie Westbrook.[4]
Thanks to Patrick Geddes''s influence, in 1900 Duncan was appointed as a Professor at the Chicago Institute founded by Francis Wayland Parker. His stay there was not a happy one, and after Parker''s death in 1902 he returned to Scotland and settled in Edinburgh, where he would live for the rest of his life.
Internal Reference: symbolist
Antique ID Number (AIDN): SA990468
Dateline of this antique is 1900
Height is 122cm (48.0inches)Width is 97cm (38.2inches)Depth is 0cm (0.0inches)
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