Elspeth Spottiswood was born and brought up in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. A solitary child she spent much of time drawing and painting. After the war she went to Camberwell School of Art only to be deeply disappointed by the narrow and stuffy curriculum. However by chance she meet the artist Oscar Kokoschka who was living in London at the time and giving informal tutorials to small groups of students. He liked her work and encouraged her to take herself seriously as a painter.

Elspeth’s subject matter was inspired by landscape, especially that of Cornwall where she lived for many years, and everyday objects. Strongly influenced by the work of Giorgio Morandi her work was primarily concerned with distilling the essence of a landscape or object and paring it right down to the minimal components. She worked mainly in oils – often thickly applied so as to create a surface texture that provided a foil to the spare and pale palate of her compositions.

‘For me images become significant when they contribute to creating a memory world of the imagination in which experience is contained and given meaning, as in the meeting of water and sky, the pale emptiness of sky and sea, the darkness of a mining valley, the pattern of objects on a table. It is this reality I try to explore, neither the place nor the object in itself but the way in which the image made of it can have its own imaginative reality’. (Elspeth Spottiswood 2006)

Exhibitions:

The Woodstock Gallery. London. 1959 

Falmouth School of Art, Cornwall 1967 

Sail Loft Gallery, St Ives, 1969 

Cider Press Gallery. Dartington, Devon, 1970 

Salt House Gallery. St. Ives, 1972

Colchester Art Centre.1984 

Collins & Hastie Ltd, Summer Exhibition 2005 

Rainy Day Gallery, Penzance 2006 

Omnibus Centre, London 2018