Francis C B Cadell
Francis Campbell Boileau (Bunty) Cadell was born in Edinburgh in 1883.
Gifted with natural artistic ability, Cadell attended the Academie Julien in Paris between 1899 and 1902. Like his contemporaries, he was strongly influenced by the powerful forces that were emerging in Paris at the time such as the work of the Fauvists, Matisse and Derain and the paintings of the Impressionists and Post Impressionists.
It is in his 1910 Venetian paintings that we evidence an explosion of bold bright colours which were to signal the arrival of the highly individual Colourist's style. Cadell's predominant colour was often a creamy white, with occasional splashes of blue, green and orange. He often used a darker coloured object as the focal point of his painting.
An observer of life, the style of Cadell's work changed dramatically after the war, perhaps as a reaction to the squalor of the trenches and hardships endured. His work became more deliberate and structured.
As described by Stanley Curisiter, "His (Cadell's) most valuable asset is an infective gaiety, a light-heartedness, combined with a daring and masterful use of colour - placed with a swift a certainty of its effective display."
Cadell died from cancer in 1937 at the relatively young age of fifty-four. In the artist's obituary, the Edinburgh Academy Chronicle referred to him as a great character, a gallant gentleman and a brilliant artist.