Dorothy Johnstone

Dorothy Johnstone (1892–1980) was a Scottish painter and watercolourist.

Johnstone was born in Edinburgh in 1892 and grew up in Napier Road, near the Gothic Mansion, Rockville.^[1] Her father, landscape artist George Whitton Johnstone (1849–1901),^[2] encouraged her artistic talents and at the age of just 16, she enrolled as a student at the Edinburgh College of Art. She took the Life Class with Ernest Stephen Lumsden where she revealed her talents at informal portraiture, a genre for which she became well known. In 1914 she became a member of staff at the Edinburgh College of Art. From the summer of 1915, Johnstone became a regular annual visitor to Kirkcudbright in Galloway, where she would paint with other mainly female artists including Jessie M. King as part of the Kirkcudbright School.^[3][4] Dorothy Johnstone with her close friends Cecile Walton^[5][6] and Mary Newbery,^[7] was a member of The Edinburgh School which reformed in 1919, a collective of gifted and progressive artists associated with the Edinburgh College of Art. In 1924, perhaps the peak year of her artistic career, she mounted a joint exhibition in Edinburgh with fellow artist Cecile Walton. Johnstone married her colleague and fellow group member David Macbeth Sutherland in 1924. They had a son in 1925 and a daughter in 1928. As a consequence of her husband's appointment in 1933 as Head of Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen now at Robert Gordon's University, Johnstone gave up a highly promising career and her students. She kept her links with Edinburgh by continuing to exhibit her portraits and landscapes at the Royal Scottish Academy for which was elected an Associate (ARSA) in 1962.

Johnstone painted landscapes and portraits, particularly of children and her style was free and relaxed, whether using oil, watercolour, pencil or chalk.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Selected bibliography

• "Dorothy Johnstone ARSA 1892-1980: A memorial exhibition: Aberdeen Art Gallery, Schoolhill, Aberdeen 18 December-15 January 1983," The Fine Art Society, Dundas Street, Edinburgh, 29 January-1 March 1983 ISBN 9780900017100

References