This exhibition revisits one of Jolomo’s favourite subjects, the Western shores of Scotland where he lives and works.
John Lowrie Morrison was born in Glasgow in 1948 and trained at the Glasgow School of Art. He worked in education for 25 years, taking up full time painting in 1997. He has become one of Scotland’s most successful living artists. In the 2011 New Year’s Honours List he received an OBE for services to art and to charity in Scotland. He lives and works in Argyll.
In 2005 John established ‘The Jolomo Foundation’, a charitable body aimed at promoting and encouraging painting the Scottish landscape.
John donates a percentage of his sales and art works to charity each year. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the West of Scotland and an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Abertay Dundee University, for ‘A Significant Contribution to Scottish Culture’. John was awarded an OBE in 2011 for ‘Services to Art and Charity in Scotland’. The following year, he and his wife Maureen were invited by HRH The Princess Royal to become Vice Presidents of Carers Trust. In 2013 over 20,000 people visited his major retrospective exhibition at Clydebank Museum and Art Gallery.
John was awarded the ‘Great London Scot Award’ for Lifetime Achievement in 2017 and in 2018 was invited to luncheon at Buckingham Palace by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and HRH Prince Philip. In the same year he preached at Crathie Kirk, Balmoral in the company of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.
His work has been exhibited in USA, China and the UK. Four of John’s paintings are in the Parliament Collection of the Scottish Government and his work is collected worldwide. Collectors include Madonna, Sting, Simon Le Bon, Gregor Fisher and Lord Patten.
“My enduring fascination with the Scottish croft goes back a long way. My family came from a ‘blackhouse croft’ on the Isle of Harris… The croft still stands although modernised… so my roots are in a croft. This has led me to paint crofts all my life… my first croft drawings and paintings being in the 1950’s… I am obsessed with the croft gable end… even when a croft is disused as with crofts cleared during the Highland Clearances… The croft may fall down in ruin… but the gable end remains like an epitaph!”