James Guthrie (artist)

Sir James Guthrie PPRSA (10 June 1859 – 6 September 1930) was a Scottish painter, associated with the Glasgow Boys.

Unlike many of his contemporaries he did not study in Paris, being mostly self-taught, although he was mentored for a short time by James Drummond in Glasgow and then John Pettie in London.

In November 1902 he was unanimously elected to succeed Sir George Reid as RSA president,[7] and he moved with his family from Glasgow to Edinburgh.

[8][9] In 1919, Guthrie was commissioned by South African financier Sir Abraham Bailey, 1st Baronet to paint a group portrait of 17 politicians and statesmen of Britain and its allies who held office during the First World War.

In the late 1880s Guthrie met Helen Newton Whitelaw, a wealthy widow at her family home, Rowmore, in Rhu, Dunbartonshire.