Painting of the Week - Jessie McGeehan
Harvesting Plums
This superb Scottish Glasgow Girl 1930's portrait oil painting is by noted female artist Jessie M. McGeehan. McGeehan studied at the Glasgow School of art, enrolling at the age of 15 in 1888 and her last recorded attendance was in 1895. While at Glasgow School of Art, Jessie associated with prominent Scottish artists including Margaret Macdonald and Frances MacDonald of the Glasgow Four. She also later studied in Paris. This gorgeous vibrant Scottish School style portrait is just superb. The composition is of a young girl in a blue dress, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She has little gold hoops in each ear and a bow in her dark hair. She is gazing at the artist/viewer with dark eyes. She is sat in the foreground with a large wicker basket of purple plums and a couple of heads of garlic clasped on her lap. Above her are branches of a tree, laden with fruit. A line of slender silver tree trunks lead past a bed of orange pumpkins to a whitewashed cottage with a woman standing in the doorway. The sunshine is illuminating the scene and casting strong shadows. The brushwork is bold, the colours vibrant and the dark outlines typical of the Scottish School artists. This is a really charming oil painting by a noted female Scottish artist and one of the best examples of her work.
Signed and dated (19)32 upper right.
Provenance Yorkshire estate.
Click below for link to McGeehan
https://www.richardtaylorfineart.com/gallery/female-artists/mcgeehan/harvesting-plums