Red chalk on brown paper

Signed with initials

30.00 x 37.50cm (11.81 x 14.76 inches)

Edinburgh, Taylor & Brown, 1923, no.39.

Burns was born in Edinburgh where his father was an early landscape photographer. His parents died when he was sixteen and as a result he went to live with his grandfather in Glasgow where he studied in the evenings at Glasgow School of Art having Charles Rennie Mackintosh as a fellow student. In 1889 he enrolled in Prof Fred Brown’s School in London before going on to the Academie Delecluse in Paris. He returned to Edinburgh in 1892.

He made his mark with a notable drawing Natura, Naturans executed in 1891 for Patrick Geddes’ Celtic Revival magazine The Evergreen. It is one of the earliest examples of art nouveau in Scotland, although not published until 1895. He also contributed to the German art nouveau review Ver Sacrum. Burns worked in Edinburgh as a graphic designer, on stained glass windows, metalwork, murals, interiors, and even for the early motor car. As a result, his output of easel paintings at this time was restricted. During the 1890s he collated and studied various versions of Scottish ballads, which his father had taught him to love, and he intended to produce in a hand-written and illustrated book. Lack of money and time delayed the project, but in 1929, after a severe illness, he returned to the project, illustrating the ballads in his style of the 1890s. These illustrations painted on vellum in watercolour, gouache, ink and gold leaf are amongst the finest Scottish book illustrations.

Although Burns worked extensively within the field of applied arts, it was with his easel paintings that he achieved popularity. His series of paintings of women seated in shaded interiors was clearly influenced by the Austrian and Belgian symbolists and he exhibited a portrait the Vienna Secession in 1899. In 1902 he was elected President of the Society of Scottish Artists but although he exhibited 68 works at the Royal Scottish Academy his relationship with them was not happy; elected an Associate member in 1902 he resigned in 1920. Likewise his position as Head of Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art was terminated due to his unorthodox teaching methods and difficult nature. In addition to his portraits and figure subjects Burns was also a fine landscape painter in oil and watercolour. In 1920 he visited Morocco and his sparkling North African views with their strong sense of pattern and colour are notable.

Examples of his work are in Aberdeen Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Scotland.