Scottish painter, the oldest of the Scottish Colourists. He lived almost all his life in Edinburgh, but he often visited France, studied briefly at the Académie Julian, and made his home in Paris, 1910–13. During this time in Paris he moved from an Impressionist style to one influenced by Cézanne and the Fauves, but later his work became less aggressively modern. In the 1920s he frequently visited the island of Iona, which—together with still-life—was his favourite subject.

He studied at the Royal Scottish Academy schools from 1893 to 1894, and then at the Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi in Paris, where he shared a room with Robert Brough. He visited the Netherlands in 1895, returning with reproductions of work by Rembrandt and Frans Hals. From 1901, he undertook painting trips to northern France and the Hebrides with his friend J. D. Fergusson, another of the Scottish Colourists. Inspired by the bright sunlight, he experimented with the bold use of colour, and the influence of the rustic realism of French painters is evident in his landscapes.