Kirkcudbright Artists' Colony

rdf:langString Kirkcudbright Artists' Colony

rdf:langString The Kirkcudbright Artists’ Colony was an artists’ community that existed approximately between 1880 and 1980 in Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway. The town attracted many of the country’s leading artists such as E A Hornel, William Mouncey, William Stewart MacGeorge, Charles Oppenheimer, Jessie M King, E A Taylor and S J Peploe. These artists and craftspeople produced an extensive body of work. Some of them are fictionalised in the 1907 S.R.Crockett novel Little Esson, including the title character who is a fictionalised version of MacGeorge (Crockett's boyhood friend) This places Kirkcudbright in the context of a group of artists’ communities that emerged in Britain from the late 19th century onwards such as Newlyn, Staithes, St Ives, Walberswick, as well in Europe generally, for example at Pont-Aven in Brittany and Worpswede in Germany. However, no other community attracted so many artists for such a long period, so that Kirkcudbright retained its special place in the history of Scottish art for over 100 years. This reputation is upheld to this day with many artists working in the town at the recently opened WASPS Artists’ Studios at Cannonwalls in the High Street.