James Paterson (1854-1932), was a Scottish landscape painter who settled in Edinburgh and produced several accomplished portraits of some of his notable contemporaries. In a talk to the Edinburgh Photographic Society he declared : ‘In comparison with drawing, as a means of penetrating and recording for oneself impressions, photography is of far inferior value.’
Paterson came from a prosperous Glasgow textile family, and grew up in an era when being an artist was disapproved. He held down a job while studying at the Glasgow School of Art, and enjoyed tuition under A. D. Robertson, widely regarded as one of Glasgow's finest watercolourists. Financed by his father, he set out in 1876 for Paris to study under Louis Jacquesson de La Chevreuse and Jean Paul Laurens.
In 1879 he visited the village of Moniaive in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, where he found the scenery to his liking and conducive to painting 'en plein air'. After his marriage to Eliza Ferguson in 1884, they settled in a cottage given them as a wedding present by James' parents. He spent more than 22 years in the area producing images of the Nithsdale and Ayrshire hills, the Solway Firth and the local streams, deftly capturing the ephemeral colours and light of the Scottish countryside. Perhaps his most renowned work in the area was his detailed account, paintings and sketches of the home of Thomas Carlyle, Craigenputtock. Over this time he formed friendships with Sir James Guthrie, E. A. Walton, William York Macgregor, Edward Atkinson Hornel and others - who came to be known collectively as The Glasgow Boys - all fellow members of Glasgow Art Club. Work by Paterson was included in Glasgow Art Club's Memorial Exhibition in 1935, in memory of those of its members who had died since the First World War.[1][2][3]