It is a career which has spanned seven decades for an artist who has drawn inspiration from the likes of the legendary Joan Eardley.

And now at the age of 88, James Greer is about to open his final ever exhibition in Milngavie this weekend.

Artwork from Greer’s days as a student at Glasgow School of Art in the 1950s to the present day will make up the exhibition, which features a collection of more than 180 wood engravings, paintings and enamels. 

Greer’s artistic education began well before his arrival at art school in 1958. Growing up through the 30s and 40s on North Frederick Street in Glasgow’s Townhead, as a boy he would often pass the legendary artist Joan Eardley outside her studio in the area, where she lived and worked, painting her neighbours and scenes like abandoned shopfronts in an area of Glasgow that experienced considerable deprivation at the time.

Eardley’s impact on Greer was such that he later in his career immortalised her in a painting of his own. 

As well as this early figure of inspiration, Greer documented through his art the place of his formative years, Townhead, through the significant transformation it went through with demolition and redevelopment to accommodate the new M8 motorway running straight through Glasgow’s city centre. 

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Greer’s active years as an artist, all covered in the exhibition, run over years of seismic change in Glasgow as a city, and this can be seen through the paintings and wood engravings. Scenes of Glasgow over more than half a century depict disused railway carriages, lone tenements, girls meeting in the street dolled-up to head for a night on the town, and kids playing in the local swing park.

Much of the exhibition is made up of printmaking, in particular wood engraving, which was Greer’s main artistic love. It was under the tutelage of Philip Reeves and Lennox Patterson at Glasgow School of Art that he discovered his talent and love for this intricate form of art which would last through the rest of his career. 

Although he honed his skills in wood engraving, now visible through the breadth of work he has produced in the medium on display at the exhibition, as a student, his introduction to the material came much earlier. It was an influence that again dates back to his childhood.

“Although I have worked across different mediums, it was my father who introduced me to wood. He was an artist too - a cartoonist for the now defunct Glasgow newspaper, The Bulletin - and couldn’t stand the smell of paint!  He handed me some wood and small chisels instead and it was love at first cut!” Greer explained.

With a childhood of his own that proved so influential in his artist career, it is perhaps unsurprising that Greer would spend 35 years of his adult life passing on his skills to the next generation.

Upon graduating Glasgow School of Art, he taught art in schools in deprived areas of Glasgow including St Roch’s Secondary School in Royston, and was Head of Art at St Andrew’s High School in Clydebank, where he worked for 22 years. 

He recognises the role of education in his own life and the opportunities he was given: “I always want to go to art school and I am privileged to have been able to have been able to pursue my passion.”

As well as the Glasgow art scene, Greer made an impact in Scottish education even beyond the schools he taught in. He was an influential voice which campaigned for the emphasis which now exists on grading young people based on their art portfolios, rather than their ability to perform in an exam environment. 

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Early retirement in 1992 offered the chance to once again focus more on his own art, which by that point was heavily influenced by Japanese woodblock printing. 

Taking inspiration from a little further than Townhead this time, Greer produced a wood engraving work of 36 Views of Dumgoyne, the hill on the edge of Campsie well-known to Glaswegians - clearly influenced by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s work Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.

The semi-autobiographical series of wood engravings on display at the exhibition portray moments in Greer’s life like an incident on Guy Fawkes night in the garden of his Bishopbriggs home. 

The 88-year-old said: “I hope people will be able to see just how much my art meant, and continues to mean, to me, and the ways in which it can enrich your life. I like to think I’ve made my mark!”

The varied nature of the work shows Greer’s rich life. The exhibition will open this Saturday 26 August and run until 28 October at the Lillie Gallery in Milngavie.