John Fowler went to see the work of a neglected artist associated

with the Scottish Colourists

THE short life of Robert Brough ended in pain two days after he

suffered dreadful burns in a train crash. His distinguished neighbour in

London, the artist John Singer Sargent, hurried to his bedside. So did

another friend -- the husband of the woman who had borne Brough a child

two years before.

Brough, a dashingly handsome man with a glittering future, was in a

sleeper compartment on the night train to London when it crashed

somewhere between Leeds and Sheffield. The carriage was engulfed in

flames.

After that, darkness fell in more ways than one. His name is found in

few accounts of modern Scottish art, and then only with the briefest

details. After his death in 1905 at the age of 32, Robert Brough

virtually disappeared from the record.

Yet he doesn't deserve this neglect, as an exhibition opening in

Aberdeen at the weekend -- the first to cover the full range of his work

-- will prove.

''After his death, essentially he was forgotten'', says Jennifer

Melville, who has put the show together. ''He is very much a neglected

soul. But I think he is one of Scotland's most important artists, and I

hope this exhibition will put him on the map again.''

Brough was born in the village of Delny, a few miles from Invergordon,

in 1872. His mother had been lady's maid to the Duchess of Hamilton,

whose coachman John Cameron was probably the father, though there were

rumours about the duke.

Single mother and child went to live with her brother in Viewforth,

now a suburb of Aberdeen, where the boy's talent was encouraged by an

influential neighbour, the artist George Reid, later a president of the

Royal Scottish Academy.

The young Brough went to night classes, won entry to the RSA school in

Edinburgh, and came top of the class in his first year as a student. He

also studied in Paris where he shared a studio with his friend S J

Peploe, later famous as one of the Scottish Colourists.

Brough set up as a painter in London with immediate success. His

portraits, executed in a dashing style reminiscent of Sargent, were much

admired -- though they later went out of fashion, dismissed by a new

generation sneeringly as representative of ''the splashing school.''

Brough's work was often shown in Scotland and on the Continent, though

little was exhibited publicly in London. He visited Paris and returned

regularly to Brittany to paint. There is a description of him spending a

week at the Prado gallery in Madrid, rapt in front of the great

Velasquez paintings which Melville believes strongly influenced his

style.

Melville, who is assistant keeper of fine art at Aberdeen Art Gallery,

is confident that the range of work on show will cause a belated

resurgence of interest in Brough, and a new assessment of his talent.

There will be plenty of formal portraits among the 100 works on show,

from the vast scale of the Marquis of Linlithgow in ermine to the

smaller portrait of the 10-year-old Philip Fleming on horseback, a

picture full of energy and vitality (and strongly reminiscent of

Velasquez).

But the real revelation is likely to be his smaller works, often

landscapes with figures, inspired by his visits to France and the

company of French artists -- though there are examples from nearer home

including one tour de force, all tumbling water, called Scottish River

in Spate, and two striking flower paintings.

There is a wonderful Breton peasant girl shown side face against a

pattern of leaves in flickering light. Another picture of two women in

Breton costume is, says Melville, ''a real treat, very simple, like a

Gauguin''.

She remarks on the flamboyance of Brough's technique and finds that

his obvious affinity with contemporary European artists -- for example

in his stark Breton Funeral -- sets his work apart from much that was

being painted this side of the Channel.

Getting the exhibition together involved considerable detective work.

The starting point was a core of pictures owned by Aberdeen, but mostly

in store. Then private owners -- not all of whom were willing to lend --

had to be tracked down all over the country.

Sadly, important details about Brough's personal life have been lost.

One of his last acts was to order his papers to be burned. Flames

consumed more than his body. But this exhibition may prove to be a

landmark. Robert Brough is once more a coming man.

* The exhibition Robert Brough ARSA is at Aberdeen Art Gallery from

February 18 to 25 March.