MURRAY McCHEYNE-NOTES ABOUT AN ARTIST

It was good to learn that auction houses-and collectors are taking interest in the  work of Murray McCheyne.His late and quite large woodcarving Xoanon was recently sold at Lyon and Turnbull in Edinburgh. Now I learn that  Anderson and Garland are selling a fine group of works by McCheyne on July 14, 2015. I particularly like the drawings which span his whole career.The group includes some excellent and vigorous work from the 1930s which have very personal associations for McCheyne, as well as later groups which show that right up to his death he was developing as an artist. This is not given to everyone.

To clarify things immediately I will say that, yes, he was named after the Scottish C19 minister.

Of the sculpture in the sale  I have much less to say. They are typical good McCheyne works from-mostly  the early part of his career. My purpose here is to note some memories of the artist and to express my enthusiasm for the drawings-many of which  I have seen in his studio but some of which  were also a surprise to me.My information about him and his work comes from conversations with the artist. (Where an item is in the sale I have given a lot number.)

A product of what sounds like a fine educational system Murray McCheyne went to Kirkcaldy Grammar School and then to art school in  Edinburgh. His schooldays seem to have been the start of a substantial interest in literature.(He was enthusiastic about The Seven Pillars of Wisdom when he was young). He was fortunate enough to go to art school when drawing was still valued.Drawing is a tool for thought as well as communication.

He and Isabel a fellow art student and another Fifer had a long engagement.Before his appointment to Newcastle he did some work with Sandy Carrick. But in the Thirties there was  not a great call for sculpture and war was looming. McCheyne exhibited two figures at the  Glasgow Empire Exhibition in 1938 -Bella and Houston he called them after the park where the exhibition was held. His work at this time related much more to the Scandinavian tradition.The response to Moore's ideas comes after the war.
He came to Newcastle as his only teaching post and remained here all his life. His appointment was scarcely made before he was conscripted.

The Blue House, Olympia,1937, lino-cut, cut 1937,printed 1973

If you visit Newbiggin and the church is open you can  see McCheyne's small but monumental woodcarving of Christ the King.This dates from the 1950s.The best known and most visible work for anyone in Newcastle are  of course the sea-horses on the Civic Centre.

Christ the King by Murray McCheyne.

Newbiggin Parish, Church

Northumberland.

As a student he headed for Greece and Scandinavia rather than Paris.The view from Edinburgh was  not the same as that from London. He was a year in Copenhagen studying with Utzon Frank. So the Danish capital provides the subject for the drawing of  Kongens Nytorv the park in the centre of the city which is No 150 in the sale and done during his student year. He went back with Isabel in later years.

Murray often said that he was fortunate to able able to travel in Europe before the Second World War. He wasn't a great traveller but Greece was his number one destination abroad.He always remembered the hospitality and generosity of Greeks he met in his youth. (Food shared   and a Greek style jacket given by someone who could perhaps scarcely afford the loss)  The landscape around Olympia provided many subjects for him during his visit in the 1930s.

The drawings of Olympia for sale  show the freshness and vigour of a young artist. It should be recorded here that he appreciated modern Greek poetry. He wrote poetry himself and was very interested in modern Scottish poetry. He was a great reader of The Penguin New Writing as they came out.

The Thessaloniki drawing , Lot 155 is rather good a strong composition and  with bold  black wash.

Street in Thessaloniki,1937.

As a student he had headed for Greece and Scandinavia rather than Paris.The view from Edinburgh was  not the same as that from London. He was a year in Copenhagen studying  at the Academy with  Einar Utzon- Frank. So the Danish capital provides the subject for the drawing of  Kongens Nytorv the park in the centre of the city which is No 150 in the sale and done during his student year. He went back with Isobel in later years.

Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen,1937. Lot 150

On a trip to Oslo he visited Edward Munch and saw the paintings Munch had pinned up outside in the snow.He also traveled through Germany as a student. Was that the trip he made with Denis Peploe? I am practically certain it was.

 Wartime saw McCheyne enlisted and at first and with the usual military lack of insight he was sent of to do something totally inappropriate for his background . Later, as one of the odd-bods he was sent to work on camouflage at Farnham. It was there that he met the pastellist Guy Roddon who was to become a lifelong friend. One of Murray's drawings of an off-duty soldier is in the Imperial War Museum along with a few relics of his wartime service. This  fine, large drawing shows a room which he and his friends had  rented for off-duty relaxation.The soldier reclines on an old sofa.(See below)

His 1940 ink drawing listed in the catalogue as ON KIMMON HILL, No154  is very free, perhaps not the kind of drawing you would associate with a sculptor. (Did Moore or Gill or Rodin have much interest in landscape-not really, I think). I cannot throw any light on the actual place.

He took many photos of modern sculpture and of his own works. At one point he made a cine film about the Hatton's Rysbrack sculpture.He wanted to use one of Britten's slighter pieces  as background music but this was refused. Murray was very knowledgeable about tape-recorders and such-like devices.

He was always interested in Scandinavian design (So too his wife Isobel, also an artist.) It was Murray who first mentioned Nielsen's music to me. Their home at 38 High Street, Gosforth was decorated in a light clean, modern way and one of the chief features in the sitting room was a  very large cast of a Cycladic figure which a friend had brought back from Greece for him.He also owned a cast of the  "Mourning Athena" which hangs on  the wall beside me as I type.At the back of the house Murray had a small, purpose-built studio for drawing and sketch works.

He and Isabel were often in the Borders and for some time had a caravan at Ettrick. He had relatives also at Moniaive.The borders, towards Dumfriesshire and Galloway provided  many subjects for drawings both early and late. He drew at Glencairn Kirkyard in 1939 a large drawing in ink (not in the sale). He would not have parted with his drawing of Ettrick Bridge in his lifetime I think.

Ettrick Bridge End,1937, Lot152

The late drawings from Mossyard subjects show him studying natural forms to see how layers of stone interlock with each other. Nature he would have said is usually the best source.

Mossyard 3, 1972, Lot162.

The plant drawings are confident and clear. You would not guess that they are the late work of an artist not in the best of health.

Scindapsus 1,Lot 163

 There is one  fine group of very complex late drawings which go to urban material for their source but remain something of a mystery to me.One of them is illustrated below.Their structure  of  semi abstract overlapping forms looks inevitable and thoroughly composed. How much is improvised, how much might be from observation I cannot say.

Urban Landscape,1971,Lot 169.

 To compose a drawing like that must have required a considerable ability to hold or imagine-or discover form in the process of drawing.Sometimes there is some perspective and it looks as if he is drawing the results of a demolition. Sometimes there is the look of a plan or map and a kind of transparency of superimposed layers.