Stirling Christmas Card, 1904
The view may be familiar but the Christmas card is from another era – from the time when Stirling was a printing and publishing town, and when the words from Sir Walter Scott’s Lady of the Lake about ‘the bulwark of the North, Grey Stirling with her towers and town’
Kitchen Vegetables, Thomas Stuart Smith
This is one of many small works in oils, by the artist Thomas Stuart Smith (1815-1869) founder of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum through his bequest. According to his fellow artist James Orrock, Smith was ‘a man who could paint anything’ and the beauty of his brush work,
Timberyard in the Snow, Henry Morley
This small painting is the latest addition to the Stirling Smith collections. It was secured in a prestigious Edinburgh saleroom, where it was wrongly labelled as ‘Edinburgh Timberyard in the Snow’. Friend of the Smith Robin Campbell bid on behalf of the museum. It is of course, a Stirling timberyard
Stirling Swordsmiths
With the recent 300th anniversary of the Battle of Sherriffmuir, we should remember that in the 18th century, Stirling was a place known for the manufacture of quality swords and other weapons. Among the noted manufacturers of basket-hilted broadswords were John Allan senior and junior and Walter Allan who produced
Talk o’ the Toun, Queen Elizabeth II Visits Stirling
In many ways, the top o’ the toun has always been the talk o’ the toun, for the old town of Stirling from Castlehill to the bottom of King Street is the town scape which visitors understand to be the essential Stirling. This is the Stirling which has delighted and
St. Crispin in Stirling
A glance at the Voice of the People columns in the Observer shows Stirling to be a busy place, with many special interest groups and societies. Societies have changed with the times, and with the first Stirling newspaper appearing in 1820, it is difficult to find the information on the
The Music of the Great War
The Stirling 100 exhibition, featuring the histories of 100 men from Stirling who fought and died in the Great War, finishes on Remembrance Sunday at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. On Friday 6 November at 2pm 2017, Dr. James Smyth, one of the curators of the exhibition will
Verge of a Dubhlochan, William Aitken (1828-1981)
This painting by William Aitken (1828-1981) is in the Stirling Smith collections. It was painted in 1958 and purchased by the Trustees at an exhibition of the work of the Stirling & Clackmannan Art Teachers in 1961. Callendar House has a painting of Loch Awe by him, and we
The Fellah from Kinneh
October is Black History Month, and today’s image is one of the three surviving portraits of black men by Thomas Stuart Smith, artist and founder of the Smith Art Gallery and Museum. The Fellah from Kinneh, or Qena, north of Luxor on the Nile delta was a native Egyptian who
William Gear (1915 – 1997)
William Gear was the son of a coal miner from Methil in Fife, where he grew up. He attended Edinburgh College of Art, 1932 – 1936. A travelling scholarship took him the Paris where he studied with Ferdinand Leger. He won a Festival of Britain purchase prize in 1951 and