James Caw

Sir James Lewis Caw (1864–1950) was a Scottish art critic and gallery director. He argued for the existence of an independent and free-standing "Scottish school of painting" arising in the second half of the 19th century.

Life

He was born in Ayr, the son of James Caw, a draper, and his wife Eliza Murray Greenfield. After study at Ayr Academy he became an apprentice engineer at the West of Scotland Technical College in Ayr. He then worked from 1887 as an engineering draughtsman, initially in Glasgow.

Caw was introduced to the Scottish art world in the early 1880s by James Guthrie, and made significant friendships, in particular with some of the Glasgow Boys. He began work at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 1885; in 1907 he became the initial director of the National Galleries of Scotland. He was a member of the Scottish Arts Club.

In 1931 Caw was knighted. He died at his home in Lasswade on 5 December 1950.

Works

Caw is considered the major historian of Scottish art of the first half of the 20th century. He wrote an ambitious survey entitled Scottish Painting Past and Present 1620 - 1908 (1908). Works on individual artists include:

• Portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn (1909)
• William McTaggart, R.S.A., V.P.R.S.W.: A Biography and an Appreciation (1917)
• Sir James Guthrie, a Biography (1932)

Himself a watercolour painter, Caw exhibited from 1887 to 1922.

Family

Caw married in 1909 Anne Mary McTaggart, daughter of William McTaggart. They had no children.