James McBey (23 December 1883 – 1 December 1959) was a self-taught artist and etcher whose prints were highly valued during the later stages of the etching revival in the early 20th century.
McBey was born in Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, educated at his village school, and at the age of 15 years became a clerk in a local bank. After reading an article on etching in an art magazine, he borrowed from Aberdeen public library Maxine Lalanne’s treatise on etching Traité de la Gravure a l’Eau-Forte and taught himself how to create etchings on zinc plates. He printed the results on paper using a domestic mangle.[1] By 1910 he had enough confidence in his own ability to abandon banking and spent the summer in Holland where he etched 21 plates.[1] His work was of sufficiently high quality to earn him an exhibition in 1911 at the Goupil Gallery in London and his prints were published in both London and Glasgow.[1]
After making a number of drawings in 1916 at the Western Front during the First World War he was appointed official war artist to the Palestine Expeditionary Force; these drawings are now in the Imperial War Museum. He made several visits thereafter to the Middle East and North Africa. During the post-war print boom in the 1920s his etchings fetched prices at auction that had only been achieved before by the Old Masters.[1] McBey was featured by Malcolm Salaman in the second volume of the series Modern Master of Etching[2] and Salaman also compiled a catalogue of his work, published in 1929.[3]
In 1931 at the age of 48 years James McBey married Marguerite Loeb of Philadelphia, and in 1942 he became an American citizen.[4] He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Aberdeen University.[5] He died in Tangier, Morocco.
The work of James McBey is held by the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Huntington Library, California; and by the Aberdeen Art Gallery where the McBey Art Reference Library was established in his name in 1961, based on a bequest from McBey’s wife. There is an almost complete collection of his work at the Boston Public Library.[5]