A chip off the old McMurtrie block

September 2010

Elspeth Haston painting in Portugal

by Jim Fiddes

Elspeth Haston spends much of her time organising the printing of cards of her mother’s drawings and paintings, exhibitions of her work and even the publication of her posthumous book on flower paintings. Elspeth, though, is a fine artist in her own right who deserves recognition.

I first met Elspeth in 2004 when I was writing a history of Gray’s School of Art and helping to organise an exhibition celebrating its 120 years. After an appeal for material relating to the school, Elspeth was one of the first to respond, with friend and fellow artist Hamish Cruickshank.

With typical generosity she donated two etchings that her mother had done in the 1920s. The etchings were of the then head of School, Alex Fraser, and the head of Painting, John Greig. An invaluable addition to the RGU collection, they were also a sign of her mother’s talent that these eminent artists were willing to sit for a student.

Elspeth was born at the manse in Skene in 1932, her father John being the parish minister. By the standards of the time she had a privileged upbringing. Her father had had a car since the 1920s, her mother had help in looking after the manse, and Elspeth went to Albyn School for most of her secondary education. Ministers’ daughters were given discounted fees at Albyn, but Elspeth would rather have stayed on at Skene Central School with her rural classmates, who included some from nearby Proctor’s Orphanage.

During wartime she remembers evacuees in the village, and helping her mother in the vestry, dishing out wool for local women to knit socks and blankets for the troops.

In 1950 Elspeth went to Gray’s School of Art, as her mother had done in 1920. In fact she was the third generation of her family to attend Gray’s as her mother’s aunt, Annie Mitchell, had gone there in 1911. Elspeth was to be followed by her own daughter Bea, and now a grand-daughter has just finished her first year at Gray’s.

I know of no other family where five consecutive generations have attended the school. Several members of this artistic family have attended other art schools, too.

Endless tap, tap, tapping

Elspeth chose sculpture as a specialism rather than painting, to avoid competing with her mother, but also, perhaps, showing that she had inherited something of her father’s ability with his hands. John McMurtrie was an excellent wood carver and carpenter.

Her tutors at Gray’s were Dick Robertson and Leo Clegg, and Elspeth McMurtrie received a commendation for her work and was awarded a Post-Diploma. Former deputy head of the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture, David Kinghorn, remembers as a student at Schoolhill hearing an endless tap, tap, tapping through the wall from the sculpture studio as Elspeth completed her diploma piece.

After leaving art school in 1955 Elspeth’s creativity took a back seat for some years, as she married Douglas Haston, a music instructor with Aberdeenshire schools. After two years in Perthshire the couple set up home at Sunhoney, Milltimber, a house given to Elspeth’s mother by fellow artist Mary Hamilton, one of the Hamiltons of Skene House. There they raised seven children and also bred goats, which came from the Rowett in a scheme whereby you kept them for a few years and then returned them.

The goats and the children all had to travel together on holiday as the family drove up to a cottage at Corgarff. Sometimes the goats were in a trailer; at other times they walked up and down in the back of the land-rover – the children sitting sideways on benches, legs drawn up to avoid being trodden on.

The family doctor, Pierre Fouin, remembers when a pregnant goat and a pregnant Elspeth made the journey to Corgarff together in the land-rover. “We always had to travel very slowly and didn’t reach the cottage until nightfall,” Elspeth remembers.

Elspeth did get back into art, sketching her children and then taking up painting, initially in watercolours. The family were not well off, as Douglas was paid less than a primary school teacher and Elspeth had too many children to allow her to work. The sale of a painting helped support the family, perhaps buying new shoes. Indeed, when Elspeth sold a painting the children would line up and ask whose turn it was to get something.

Gradually, though, Elspeth got back into the art world, being elected a member of Aberdeen Artists’ Society in 1973 and of the Scottish Society of Women Artists in 1987. An active member of the Gray’s Former Students Club, she also began to exhibit her work in solo and group shows.

Elspeth paints because she likes to; and when she sells a painting, says it is nice to get the money, but she is sad to see it go. She prefers to paint out of doors, in this country and abroad, especially in Portugal where she went first to accompany her mother. Her subjects are landscapes, seascapes, streets, houses and people. Like her mother she sketches everywhere on her travels, in notebooks, a visual diary.

Her friend Hamish Cruickshank often paints with her, both here and in Portugal, and he can best describe her work.

“Elspeth’s watercolours have a particularly liquid quality and her painting in oils is equally skilful, tending to be loose and spontaneous which make them look deceptively easy to do. She often paints musicians, instrumentalists of all kinds and the odd conductor, who might be surprised to know that he had been caught, frozen in time, stick wagging and quite recognisable.

“She can capture the ambiance of her subject and create a piece of pure magic. Her work has a lasting quality and one never grows tired of looking at it. She has the admiration of her fellow artists both amateur and professional.”

The Nabis group in Paris

Of the great painters she particularly admires Pierre Bonnard, a member of the Nabis group in Paris in the late 19th century. Co-incidentally, another member of that group was James Pitcairn-Knowles, now little known, but from a Kirkton of Skene family. Nearer home Elspeth is influenced by the Scottish painters, Anne Redpath and William Gillies, and also by ‘Dawyck’ Haig, son of Field Marshall Earl Haig.

Elspeth was quite late in starting to paint in oils as opposed to watercolours. She says, “because I did sculpture I didn’t feel like a real painter until I used oils”.

Hamish remembers that on their first trip abroad after she started using them they checked in at the airport desk. “What’s in the

“Oil paints” said Elspeth proudly.

“You can’t take those on board, they are flammable.” When the assistant saw Elspeth’s crestfallen face, she relented and said, “Okay, we’ll just say watercolours”.

Hamish, an art teacher, he says that he has learned much more from Elspeth than she ever learned from him.

Now in her 79th year, Elspeth shows no sign of slowing down. Last year she camped with family members at Sandend and, as well as painting, she donned a wetsuit and went surf-boarding.

In April this year, she travelled in an old car with her daughter, also Elspeth, to Plymouth, by ferry to northern Spain, then across the mountains to Portugal, occasionally camping. There she painted, of course, but also delivered copies of one of her mother’s Portuguese flower books to various shops.

Let us hope that, like her mother, she carries on working until her 100th year.

Jim Fiddes was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, then studied History at Aberdeen University. Retired librarian for Gray’s School of Art and Scott Sutherland School of Architecture, he has written a history of Gray’s, a history of Pitfodels and Garthdee, and articles on Skene.

This is an article from the September 2010 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.