Aberdeen’s Douglas Strachan has been described as Scotland’s greatest artist of the 20th Century, yet barely a soul has heard of him.
While many artists found success posthumously, Strachan’s stained glass genius was recognised in his own lifetime.
His name was synonymous with large-scale public artworks and memorials, not least the Peace Palace at The Hague in the Netherlands.
Strachan was the most eminent and prolific stained glass artist of his time, and a major Arts and Crafts movement artist.
Peter Cormack, leading stained glass historian and former curator of the William Morris Gallery, goes as far to argue Strachan is Scotland’s greatest artist of the 20th Century.
But in the 75 years since his death, outwith small circles of academics, his name is slipping into obscurity.
Douglas Strachan’s humble beginning in Aberdeen
Robert Douglas Strachan was born at 55 Victoria Street in Aberdeen on May 26 1875, the eldest son of Isabella and bookkeeper Hercules Strachan.
The couple later moved to Jute Street with Douglas, and siblings Isabella, Alexander and Hercules.
He attended the Normal School on George Street, but won a bursary to Robert Gordon’s College aged nine.
Young Strachan was very academic, but longed to attend the newly-opened Gray’s School of Art next door.
Siblings Christina, William and James came along and the growing family moved to Watson Street, where sadly infant James died.
By now 15-year-old Strachan was an apprentice lithographer at the Aberdeen Free Press, now the Press and Journal.
Young Strachan’s first job was at Press and Journal
His time at the Free Press was formative. In later years Strachan’s daughter Una Wallace recalled how her father had been asked to draw a convicted murderer in court.
But he missed the sentencing, and fearful of losing his job, ran to prison to see the prisoner.
Una said: “The officer unlocked the gate and this young boy found himself looking into the eyes of a murderer.”
Editor William Alexander encouraged Strachan to develop his painting, so he enrolled in evening classes at Gray’s.
Between his apprenticeship and illustration incomes, he saved up enough to attend the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.
Strachan turned to stained glass as Arts and Crafts movement took off
From there Strachan went to Manchester and forged a successful career in newspapers working as an illustrator.
It was here Cormack says Strachan’s interest turned to stained glass.
He said: “Strachan was introduced to stained glass at a period when the Arts and Crafts movement was really taking off in the 1890s.
“Then he was given a job to do his very first window back in Aberdeen by a friend of his, William Kelly, the wonderful local architect.
“Kelly was very much part of Arts and Crafts in Aberdeen, the other person was James Cromar Watt, the enameller and jeweller, who produced beautiful work, he was a close friend of Strachan.”
Strachan had close network of talented friends in Aberdeen
Still aged only 22, the accomplished Strachan had a desire to learn more, and Cromar Watt paid for him to travel the Mediterranean to see more art.
Returning to Aberdeen, Strachan’s prolific public art career began with early works in his first medium.
These included a series of, now lost, painted frescoes for Aberdeen Trades Hall completed in 1898, and symbolist murals at the Music Hall, thankfully preserved.
Although undoubtedly skilled in painting, Strachan’s calling lay elsewhere.
On the cusp of a new century, Cormack said Strachan was “drawn more and more” into stained glass.
Around this time his first commission from Kelly, a depiction of the Virgin Mary, was unveiled at St Nicholas Kirk.
Cormack cites this “close network of friends in Aberdeen” for helping his artistic career.
Aberdeen lead the way in Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland
A holy trinity of artisans, firm friends Kelly, Cromar Watt and Strachan lead the Arts and Crafts movement in Aberdeen – and arguably Scotland.
Designer and social activist William Morris is best known as a founding father of the movement.
In simple terms, he promoted the idea of ‘joy in collective labour’ through a desire to reject mass production in favour of reviving handcraftsmanship.
But beyond that, he wanted to revolutionise industry and politics; he was deeply uncomfortable with the class divide and sought fairness for all.
Aberdeen was a luminary of this radical movement, but like Strachan, its contribution to the era is all but forgotten.
Cormack explains: “There’s a lot of attention on Glasgow with Rennie Mackintosh and all the wonderful women artists, but the two other centres were Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
“Aberdeen was really important, in some ways more important in the early days than Edinburgh.”
Strachan’s ideology and methology embodied principles of movement
Many of Aberdeen’s artists, including Douglas and his talented brother Alex, left the city for Edinburgh.
Both brothers taught at Edinburgh College of Art in the 1900s, but Douglas had so much work in his own right he returned to Aberdeen.
Cormack added: “Alex’s work is even less known than Douglas but he was very talented, they were two very talented brothers.
“Alex was a brilliant craftsman and in the early years, when they were still Aberdeen, most of the windows were made with the two of them working together.”
Strachan’s methodology – and his ideology – was embedded in the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Cormack said: “Strachan always kept a very close hand on the work, he drew all the designs and full-size cartoons for the windows and did the actual selection of all the coloured glass.
“He did virtually all the glass painting himself as well, it’s quite astonishing really, he really embodies that kind of Arts and Crafts ideal.”
Inimitable style of Strachan’s stained glass ‘genius’
When Douglas and his brother received commissions they were able to set up their own workshop and recruited local craftsmen to work with them.
“They were all Aberdonians, and in the early years most of the work was in Aberdeen,” added Cormack.
“It was probably the best period of glass making in Britain at that time, really, we were making the best glass in the world.”
Strachan was influenced by English stained glass artist Christopher Whall, who also completed windows in Scotland.
Strachan’s first window in St Nicholas Kirk sits next to one by Whall which had also been commissioned by Kelly.
What made Strachan so successful was his inimitable style, which Cormack attributes to his genius.
“He was a wonderful draughtsman, his figure drawing was superb, but he has a slightly jagged, dynamic way of using figures and leading in the windows.
“He really understood how stained glass is a graphic medium and the lines of the leading are a very dramatic way that you can draw with colour.
“He was a genius – he knew how to choose the perfect piece of coloured glass.”
Stained glass panels were Britain’s gift to Palace of Peace
Scotland produced some of the best stained glass of the 20th Century, but it’s not well known or often written about.
Cormack describes stained glass as the “Cinderella of the arts”, yet it’s also public art – it can be seen by almost anybody.
Just some of the churches in Aberdeen that contain windows by Strachan include Queen’s Cross Church, St Machar’s Cathedral and King’s College Chapel, the latter Cormack describes as “strikingly good”.
He added: “One of his windows in the chapel at King’s College is the war memorial window and that’s really fabulous.
“It has two Highland buglers facing each other and then various allegorical subjects.
“It’s a really wonderful window, a very powerful war memorial, he’s very good at that kind of subject, which can be mawkish or not very impressive.”
When the Palace of Peace was established at The Hague in the Netherlands, Britain’s gift to the organisation was stained glass panels by Strachan.
Strachan’s deep intellect reflected in complex subject matters
Strachan gained worldwide acclaim for four huge windows in the International Courts of Justice, a very challenging and intellectual task.
Cormack explained: “The windows are a very interesting allegory of the whole idea of peace and the evolution of what they hoped would be a peace movement.
“They couldn’t represent religious tradition because the Peace Palace was an international organisation, they didn’t want to create religious conflict.”
Sadly two world wars would follow, and Strachan’s windows would bear silent witness to high-profile war crime trials under the spotlight of the world.
When it came to commemorating Scotland’s war dead, Strachan crafted the windows for the National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle.
The result was “extremely moving” themes of religion and war.
Cormack describes Strachan’s war memorial windows as “the best of that period”.
A panel at a church on Finchley Road in London depicts a British soldier helping a wounded German soldier, a bold decision amid postwar ill-feeling towards Germany.
Why is Strachan forgotten and not celebrated?
So why should someone of Strachan’s reputation and distinction be forgotten, when Arts and Crafts contemporaries like Edward Burne-Jones are celebrated for their glasswork?
Cormack says part of the problem with stained glass is people “latch onto” one name and people become “so invested in one person”.
In America it’s Tiffany, in Britain it tends to be Burne-Jones.
He added: “It’s appalling to think someone like Douglas Strachan should be neglected or ignored because, Burne-Jones stained glass is glorious at its best, but there’s quite a lot of it and some of it’s not as inspired as others.
“But Strachan is really one of the greats in the modern history of the art form.”
What Cormack and other experts find frustrating is that Strachan is forgotten even in Aberdeen.
Some of his work even fell foul of the pursuit of modernisation.
‘Lost’ Marischal College windows found in air raid shelter
Early panels by Strachan depicting scientific themes once graced the university library windows above the entrance to Marischal College.
These disappeared; some turned up at auction in London decades later, other parts were found stored in an air raid shelter in Aberdeen.
Cormack helped identify the Cruickshank windows and a grant was sought to buy them back, he added: “They should never have left the university.
“It was in the 1960s where they thought ‘these are old Victorian things’, a stupid prejudice, but now they obviously realise how important they were.”
150 years on from Strachan’s birth, Cormack expresses disappointment that nothing has been done in the city to commemorate him.
He said: “I think he is Scotland’s greatest 20th Century artist, I still hold to that.
“Aberdeen could make more of Strachan.”
Aberdeen Art Gallery has a panel in storage which features a detail of the Peace Palace windows depicting a Zeus-like god with a thunderbolt.
Strachan made it for Cromar Watt who later donated it to the gallery.
Strachan ‘Britain’s greatest stained glass artist’
Cormack feels this should be in the permanent collection in Aberdeen, adding: “They don’t seem to be able to celebrate Strachan’s achievement.
“They really should have that on display because it’s a link with a very important national body.
“I think people in Aberdeen would be very proud to think when these important trials are taking place, Douglas Strachan’s windows are the backdrop.
“It’s a great pity because I think people would be very thrilled if they knew they had this world-class artist.
“Without any doubt, when he died in 1950 he was by far the greatest British stained glass artist.”
His descent into obscurity is something Cormack describes as tragic.
He added: “A boy from Aberdeen from very, very modest beginnings became an internationally-important artist, it’s a story worth telling, I think.”
There may be no blue plaque drawing attention to Strachan’s birthplace, but many buildings in Aberdeen bear the hallmarks of his genius – if you know where to look.
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