Renowned artist and teacher who created 36 views of landmark hill

The team leader at the Lillie said that the gallery had just acquired 47 Greer woodcuts through the National Fund for Acquisitions when it heard that it had a space to exhibit them sooner than it thought. “We are so lucky to have them”, James Higgins declared. “The idea behind them is so clever and they are beautifully executed. In 100 years from now, people will be thinking, ‘thank God they bought these works’.”

James Greer, who has died aged 89, was a renowned artist and former school teacher. His death comes 14 months after the Lillie staged a major retrospective of his life’s work. So many of his former pupils contacted him to speak of the lasting impression he had made on them. Such is his legacy that all three of his children followed him to art school, and two of them also into teaching.

Glasgow art: James Greer unveils new exhibition in Milngavie

Galleries: Three very different takes on Scotland

James Greer was born on November 4, 1934, in Townhead, Glasgow, to William and Agnes Greer. He had an older brother, Bill. His father worked in the typesetting department at The Bulletin, a pictorial newspaper that was, before it folded in 1960, a sister publication to the Herald and the Evening Times. He was a shop steward there and happened to be a talented amateur artist, who drew cartoons which were published in the Bulletin and other papers.

As James later related: “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”.

While growing up in Townhead James often came upon the great artist, Joan Eardley, outside her studio there. Much later, he would immortalise her in one of his prints. After leaving St Mungo’s Academy he began studying at Glasgow School of Art where, under the expert guidance of Phillip Reeves and Lennox Patterson, he developed his lifelong love of printmaking, in particular the intricate art of wood engraving. He graduated in 1958 and began training at Jordanhill as a teacher of art. 

He worked in such schools as St Roch’s Secondary School, Royston, and St Ninian’s, Kirkintilloch, before becoming Principal Teacher of Art in St Andrew’s, Clydebank, where he taught for 22 years. He was highly regarded as a teacher, and served on the committees that designed the basis of the syllabus for the current Higher Art that is taught in schools today. His passion for art, and for teaching young people to express themselves artistically, prompted him to campaign for what is now the current educational emphasis in Scotland, whereby pupils are graded according to their portfolio, rather than their aptitude for exams.

For years he had taken advantage of the long summer holidays to work on his own art, and when he took early retirement in 1992, after 35 years’ dedicated service, it was an easy transition into what he had always wanted to do – to become an artist, influenced heavily by Japanese woodblock printing. In homage to Katsushika Hokusai, perhaps the most famous Japanese artist in Western art history, renowned for his woodblock series, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Greer produced 36 Views of Dumgoyne, in 1985.

Read more

• ‘A heavenly man and a beautiful singer’: star of Scottish Opera dies

• 'I should’ve been dead at 15 months old' - Tributes to actor & writer

• Tributes to an inspiring teacher at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

• Frank Pignatelli: Educationalist & Apostrophe Protection Society chair

“Greer’s series grew arms and legs, to the extent that he made were more than 36 woodcuts featuring Dumgoyne; some more obscure than others”, Jan Patience wrote in the Herald in 2020, having seen that year’s exhibition at the Lillie.  “The series includes scenes close to home – there is a beautiful and affecting small work called Stobhill Again, which depicts his late wife, Patricia, in her hospital bed surrounded by hospital paraphernalia and flowers. In the background, out the window, you can just pick out the outline of Dumgoyne.

“There’s comedy and sex too in the mix”, she added. “Not to mention a homage to Rembrandt in the form of Susanna and the Elders, a woodcut which depicts a languorous nude stretched out on a tartan travelling rug clutching a photograph of a man”.

Greer had met Patricia (Paddy) through a badminton club where he played. They were married in March 1963 and would go on to have three children – Mark, Simon and Ruth. Paddy died of cancer, in Stobhill, in 2008.

Apart from his family, and his art, his other great passion was for rugby, which is said to have bordered on the fanatical. He had been introduced to the sport while still at school – he played for the St Mungo’s team – and from the late 1940s onwards he was an eager spectator not only at Hughenden for Glasgow team matches but Murrayfield for international clashes. When Scotland won the Grand Slams in 1984 and 1990, he was among the thousands of fans who cheered themselves hoarse. Sadly, ill-health meant that in the last two years he had to stop going to see Glasgow Warriors, having rarely missed any of their games in decades. But he avidly followed, on television, their epic triumph in last season’s United Rugby Championship.

Speaking just over a year ago as the Lillie launched his career retrospective, Greer 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”. He is survived by his children and three grand-children, Luke, Adam and Cara.

At The Herald, we carry obituaries of notable people from the worlds of business, politics, arts and sport but sometimes we miss people who have led extraordinary lives. That's where you come in. If you know someone who deserves an obituary, please consider telling us about their lives. Contact garry.scott@heraldandtimes.co.uk