Home Culture Museums Our Museums Edwin G Lucas: A Purely Individual Painter

Edwin G Lucas: A Purely Individual Painter

Edwin G. Lucas (1911-1990) was a Scottish artist who was unrecognised during his lifetime, but has become known for unique and quirky work since he was “discovered” by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2013.

Subsequently, high-profile solo exhibitions have been held in Edinburgh and Southend-on-Sea, and this summer his work comes to Hawick Museum & Gallery. It’s six years since his last exhibition in Scotland, and this is the first time his work has been shown in the Borders.

Lucas started out painting landscape watercolours, but his work took a radical turn when he encountered Surrealism in the 1930s. He later referred to this period as a “flirtation with Surrealism”, but the paintings he made then are notable since very few Scottish artists were working in this style.

The post-war years were his most creative and prolific. He had a day job to provide funds but saw himself primarily as a serious painter. He experimented with many different styles and subjects, leading to work that’s very varied and quite unlike what others were doing.

Lucas married a Borderer, Marjorie McCulloch, in 1952 and soon set aside painting to focus on raising a family, before returning to the easel in the 1980s.

This exhibition shows paintings and drawings, richly illustrating his Surrealist period and the unique body of innovative work he created later, along with rare archival material from the artist’s estate.

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