The Scottish Gallery are presenting an exhibition of new painting by Scotland’s senior landscape painter, James Morrison as their leading show for the 2015 Edinburgh Art Festival. The subjects vary from epic views across Angus and the west coast, to descriptions of a summer hedgerow, humming with life.

James Morrison is whole-heartedly engaged as a landscape painter but sees no constraint in this choice; his work is thematically rich, poetic and lyrical, and for many has added to our understanding of the Scottish landscape. His main working areas are the ancient farmland around his home in Angus, the Mearns of Grassic Gibbon’s ‘Sunset Song’ and, in complete contrast, the rugged wildness of the west coast at Assynt.

This long awaited exhibition represents the culmination of three years work, bringing new subjects and some adaption of his studio practice, including work made directly in front of the landscape.

The exhibition will include a rediscovered picture from 1963 as an immediate response to the tragic early death of Joan Eardley. Morrison first came to live at Catterline when Joan Eardley had her cottage in the village and he and his wife Dorothy got to know her well.

James Morrison was born in Glasgow in 1932 and studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1950 to 1954. He joined the staff at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee in 1965 having moved first to Catterline and then to Montrose. He left teaching to paint full-time in 1987.