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Pittenweem

Artist: Gillies, William George, Sir, CBE RA RSA PPRSW · 1898-1973

Pittenweem

The well known cluster of old buildings on the harbour front known as The Gyles is instantly recognizable and is here pushed to the top quarter of the…

The well known cluster of old buildings on the harbour front known as The Gyles is instantly recognizable and is here pushed to the top quarter of the canvas.

Gillies painted several views of this part of the town which were exhibited in the late 1940s.

The foreground abstraction is in fact fishing nets with their cork floats laid out to dry or for repair on the quayside with a decorative network in black of the masts and rigging of a fishing boat the keel of which lies below the quayside surface.

Stylistically the composition bears strong similarities to Gillies' oil "Fishing Nets, St Abbs" oil on canvas, 68.6 x 81.2cm, which is dated 1956 and was lent to the Gillies Retrospective Exhibition in 1970 (cat.71) from a private collection and was illustrated in the catalogue in b&w on p.21.

© Royal Scottish Academy of Art & Architecture