Light

Throughout his life, John Henry Lorimer sought to represent the clarity and diversity of light. His first watercolour, painted in 1864 when he was eight years old, pictured Kinghorn Loch. The sketch has since been lost. But his choice to represent a Fife landscape, possibly including an Autumn sky reflected in water, anticipates many of his future works of art. The painting was the first of hundreds inspired by the light and landscape of Fife, a county surrounded by sea on three sides.

John Henry was almost twenty-one when his family stumbled upon Kellie Castle, empty but for the birds nesting in its crumbling walls and chimney pots. Dandelions and nettles pushed up through the floorboards. Not a pane of glass remained in its tall, elegant windows and many of the tiles on the steep, sloping roof had slipped or cracked, letting in the wind, rain and light of the East Neuk of Fife. The family fell in love with it.

Kellie, rented and restored by the Lorimers from 1878, became John Henry’s greatest source of inspiration. It was a place of retreat, somewhere to observe and record the changing light of each day and changing seasons of each year. The castle passed to the National Trust for Scotland in 1970.

The audioguide for Reflections: The light and life of John Henry Lorimer is presented and produced by the exhibition co-curator, Charlotte Lorimer. It includes the panels of text displayed in the exhibition, as well as dramatised readings of family letters and memoirs, performed by Clive Russell, George Lorimer, Ed Wade, Natasha Jobst and Sarah Haynes. The audioguide also includes twelve original poems by Christine de Luca. The exhibition runs from 6th November 2021 to 20th March 2022 at The City Art Centre in Edinburgh.