FCB Cadell is one of the four artists known as the Scottish Colourists,
who are amongst the most known and most loved modern Scottish artists.
The others are John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter and Samuel John Peploe.
We feel that Cadell is perhaps the most Scottish of the four Scottish Colourists.
He was born in Edinburgh at 4 Buckingham Terrace in 1883
and he lived in the Scottish capital for most of his life
and from 1912 spent virtually every summer on the Hebridean island of Iona
except for during the war and in the very last years of his life.
I would have loved to have known Cadell, Bunty as he was known to friends and family.
He would have been tremendously good company
and that came across, clearly that personality came across through some of the way that he dressed.
He was sort of a kinsman of the Campbells of Inveraray and wore his Campbell highland regalia with pride
but always spun with a lemon yellow waistcoat or a duck egg blue tammy.
In Iona he was very well known, known I think sometimes as 'Himself'
and spotted crossing the machar by someone who didn't know who he was who said "Who's that, who's that man?"
"Oh that's not a man, that's Mr Cadell."
When Cadell was six the family moved to 22 Ainslie Place in the heart of Edinburgh's Georgian New Town.
Cadell was a pupil at Edinburgh Academy and a school report in the National Library of Scotland declares
that a pencil in his hand at any time was a danger to lessons.
When he was 16, on the suggestion of the Scottish painter Arthur Melville,
he moved to Paris with his mother and his sister to study.
It seems that Cadell was very sociable during his early years in Paris between the ages of 16 and 19
and in this letter his mother relates how he'd been out and about and wasn't doing quite as much work as he ought to.
She writes 'he has completely worn himself out now by late nights and gadding around
and felt too ill to eat any dinner last night
so I think we shall probably have a bout of work soon.
He arrived three quarters of an hour late for dinner
having fallen asleep in the underground and being carried right to the end of the line.'
Cadell studied in Paris from 1898 until 1902 when the family returned to Edinburgh
and he spent the next three years in the Scottish capital tentatively embarking on a professional career as an artist.
Cadell's studio at George Street became the subject of much of his art,
he decorated and furnished it with great care.
The floor was shiny black reflective linoleum and the walls were painted a light lilac colour.
Cadell painted the interior of his studio as a subject in its own right
but also peopled by the sophisticated inhabitants of Edinburgh's upper class.
In many of his figure studies the same model appears, Miss Bertia Hamilton Don Wauchope.
She is the beautiful elegant lady depicted in Ainslie Place
on a chaise longue or up at a mantelpiece or reflected in a mirror, known as the lady in black.
Iona's heyday as an artists' colony was between the war and a prominent member of that artists' community was Cadell.
In 1920 Cadell brought Peploe to Iona for the first time.
Cadell was twelve years or so younger than my grandfather
and they probably didn't meet until the early years of the twentieth century
but certainly they became very close friends.
Peploe also I think, as the senior artist, would provide a kind of professional inspiration to Cadell
and they also, on a kind of practical level, they actually shared ideas,
occassionally even shared studio props and they painted together many times,
particularly on Iona where it's traditionally understood that Cadell actually encouraged Peploe to visit Iona first after the First World War,
the idea perhaps of finding an island paradise to refind their innocence
and certainly their mutual belief in the power of colour
and I think the redemptive power of painting to enhance and perhaps even change people's lives
was something that they both shared and was important to them.
In 1927 Cadell undertook his only known commercial commission
to design three posters for the ferry company David MacBrayne Ltd.
MacBrayne's operated steamers which brought passengers from Oban to Iona.
Cadell therefore based his designs on three Iona paintings which were captioned
'Scotland's Wonderland by MacBrayne's Steamers'.
Cadell exhibited regularly throughout the 1920s and at times sold well.
However, as economic recession took hold
he, like all other painters of the period, began to find it harder and harder to sell their paintings.
Cadell's financial situation was also not helped by his lavish lifestyle
and in 1928 he was foced to sell the lower four floors of 6 Ainslie Place.
He spent a year staying with friends and patrons before moving to 30 Regent Terrace
and eventually to a flat in 4 Warriston Crescent in the Canonmills area of Edinburgh.
Yet at the same time, Cadell's professional reputation was on the rise.
He was elected to the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour and to the Royal Scottish Academy,
the only of the four Scottish Colourists to be awarded both honours.
Cadell's later years were marred by financial difficulties and ill-health.
In terms of ill-health, in 1934 he fell from one of Edinburgh's tram cars in a story he relates in correspondence at the time
'A fortnight ago I fell down the stair of one of our infernal tram cars and landed on the tail end of my spine on one of the metal-edged steps,
since when I've been unable to do anything but stand or lie upon my bed.'
His run of ill luck continued and in 1937 he was diagnosed with cancer.
One of the letters that we have here in the display must have been written perhaps a week or two before his death in November 1937
and talks about his pain following an operation for the cancer and also his struggles in trying to find a nursing home he could remain in.
Cadell died in Moray Place in Edinburgh in 1937.
Five years later a memorial exhibition was held at the National Gallery of Scotland.
This exhibition is the first solo exhibition of Cadell's work held in a public gallery since then.