Collections

Painting 1975 - Buff

Artist: Littlejohn, William Hunter, RSA RSW RGI · 1929-2006

Painting 1975 - Buff

The artist exhibited a number of works at the RSA Annual Exhibitions in 1975, 1976 and 1979 bearing titles like “Painting 1975- Blue” or…

The artist exhibited a number of works at the RSA Annual Exhibitions in 1975, 1976 and 1979 bearing titles like “Painting 1975- Blue” or “Painting 1974 – Pink” to which series this appears to be related.

There is a second abstract still life work painted on the reverse of the canvas and inverted to the present image and which must therefore pre-date Painting 1975 - Buff.

The work bears the Scottish Arts Council Collection accession number 77/31 indicating that it was purchased between March 1977 and March 1978. Littlejohn exhibited in the exhibition The Modern Spirit in Scottish Painting, at the Scottish Gallery in 1977, and the SAC may have purchased this work from there.

The bulk of the Scottish Arts Council Collection was dispersed via the SAC Bequest in 1996 to publicly accessible collections in Scotland. Following the disbanding of the SAC, its functions were taken over by the new body, creative Scotland. Creative Scotland made subsequent gifts of works from the SAC Collection that had not been included in the 1996 Bequest. The Royal Scottish Academy was the recipient of a large number of such works in 2011 and received the present work in 2014.

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