August 1954: Death of Robert Eadie, R. S. W.
Robert Eadie, R. S. W., died “At an infirmary”, on the 1st of August, 1954. The notice of his death is on the front page of
The Glasgow Herald, on Monday the 2nd of August, and on Tuesday the 3rd. His home address was 1 Royal Terrace, and
his burial was at Rutherglen Cemetery, on the 4th.
His obituary is on page three of the Herald, on Monday the 2nd, and reads:
“SCOTTISH ARTIST’S DEATH
Mr Robert Eadie
Mr Robert Eadie, R. S. W., who died yesterday, was a Scottish artist well known
for his water-colour drawings of Glasgow buildings and streets.
Mr Eadie was born in Glasgow in 1877, and served a useful apprenticeship in
lithography which, allied with studies at Glasgow School of Art and in Munich,
gave him a command of pencil and brush always afterwards evident in his art.
His work in oils, water-colours and black-and-white soon won appreciation and
he became a regular exhibitor at the Glasgow Fine Art Institute and, before 1914,
at the Paris Salon. He painted a good deal on the Continent, but returned home
frequently and always found congenial subjects on the coast of Fife. During the
First World War he served in the Royal Engineers, and sketches made of officers
there led afterwards to quite a cult of portraits in water-colours which were always
alive and suggestive of personality.
CITY ATMOSPHERE
Mr Eadie for long found fertile inspiration in the streets and architecture of Glasgow,
and his water-colours lived up entirely to the famous topographical drawings of the
past in conveying true picture with atmosphere. Many were exhibited in a one-man
show held in 1932 in the city, and a dozen drawings were later published in book form,
‘The Face of Glasgow,’ in which Mr William Power collaborated with descriptive writing.
A member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colour, Mr Eadie was also
a past president of the Glasgow Art Club. He lived at 1 Royal Terrace, Glasgow.”
George Fairfull-Smith, December 2022.