Sir Muirhead Bone (23 March 1876 – 21 October 1953) was a Scottish
etcher and
watercolourist who became known for his depiction of industrial and architectural subjects and his work as a war artist in both the
First and
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
s.
A figure in the last generation of the
Etching Revival, Bone's early large and heavily worked architectural subjects fetched extremely high prices before the
Wall Street crash of 1929 deflated the collectors' market. He was well known, if not notorious, for publishing large numbers of different
states
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
of etchings, encouraging collectors to buy several impressions.
Bone was an active member of both the
British War Memorials Committee in the First World War and the
War Artists' Advisory Committee in the Second World War.
He promoted the work of many young artists and served as a Trustee of the
Tate Gallery, the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...
, and the
Imperial War Museum
The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civ ...
.
Early life
Muirhead Bone was born in
Partick,
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
. His parents were journalist David Drummond Bone (1841–1911)
[The Late Mr David D. Bone](_blank)
The Scottish Referee, 27 October 1911 via London Hearts Supporters Club website. and Elizabeth Millar Crawford (1847–1886). Bone and his siblings attended the local
Board school and were placed in apprenticeships from the age of fourteen.
James Bone, Muirhead Bone's senior by four years, was apprenticed as a newspaper reporter and went on to become the London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian while
David Bone, another older brother, joined the navy and eventually became Commander Master of the
Anchor Line and was knighted. Muirhead Bone was initially apprenticed as a painter of porcelain and later as an architect's draughtsman and completed a four-year apprenticeship before immediately turning to art.
Bone studied at the
Glasgow School of Art, initially at evening classes. There he befriended the artist
Francis Dodd and his sister
Gertrude Helena Dodd, to whom he became engaged in 1898.
He began
printmaking
Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...
in 1898, his first known print was a
lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
and he is now better known for his etchings and drypoints. His subject matter was principally related to landscapes and architecture, which included urban construction and demolition sites, Gothic cathedrals and Norman buildings.
The collection of his prints held by the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
contains a number of works based in South Ayrshire, between 1898 and 1916. In 1900 he tried to run art classes in Ayr, from newly built premises at Wellington Chambers.
In 1901 Bone moved to London, where he met
William Strang
William Strang (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) was a Scottish painter and printmaker, notable for illustrating the works of John Bunyan, Bunyan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Coleridge and Rudyard Kipling, Kipling.
Early life
Strang was bor ...
,
Dugald MacColl and
Alphonse Legros, and became a member of the
New English Art Club
The New English Art Club (NEAC) is a society for contemporary artists that was founded in London, England, in 1886 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. The NEAC holds an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries ...
. He held his first solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in 1902.
Bone was also a member of the
Glasgow Art Club
Glasgow Art Club is a club in Glasgow for artists and non-artists interested in creating art and the enjoyment of art - all illustrative arts, sculptures, poetry, prose, plays, music, song, choreography and dance. To advance, promote and encourag ...
with which he exhibited.
In 1903, Bone had finally achieved enough financial success as an artist that he could afford to marry Gertrude, after a five-year engagement.
They moved to
Chiswick
Chiswick ( ) is a district in West London, split between the London Borough of Hounslow, London Boroughs of Hounslow and London Borough of Ealing, Ealing. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist Wi ...
and had their first son, Stephen, in 1904, and their second son, Gavin, in 1907.
Bone continued to visit Ayr, producing the notable prints of Ayr Prison in 1905 and a series based on the view of the Ballantrae Road in 1907.
First World War and interbellum
During the First World War,
Charles Masterman
Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman Privy Council of the United Kingdom, PC Member of parliament, MP (24 October 1873 – 17 November 1927) was a British radical Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party politician, intellectual and man of letters. He ...
, head of the British War Propaganda Bureau, acting on the advice of
William Rothenstein, appointed Bone as the first official
British war artist in May 1916. Bone had lobbied hard for the establishment of an Official War Artists scheme and in June 1916 he was sent to France with an honorary rank and a salary of £500.
Although thirty-eight years old at the outbreak of war, Bone was spared from certain enlistment by his appointment. Bone's small, black and white drawings, and their realistic intensity, reproduced well in the government-funded publications of the day. Where some artists might have demurred at the challenge of drawing ocean liners in a drydock or tens of thousands of shells in a munitions factory, Bone delighted in them; he was rarely intimidated by complex subjects and whatever the challenge those who commissioned his work could always be sure that out of superficial chaos there emerged a beautiful and ordered design.
Commissioned as an honorary
second lieutenant, Bone served as a war artist with the Allied forces on the
Western Front and also with the Royal Navy for a time. He arrived in France on 16 August 1916, during the
Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme (; ), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 Nove ...
and produced 150 drawings of the war before returning to England in October 1916.
Over the next few months Bone returned to his earlier subject matter, producing six lithographs of shipyards on the Clyde for the
War Propaganda Bureau's ''Britain's Efforts and Ideals'' portfolio of images which were exhibited in Britain and abroad and were also sold as prints to raise money for the war effort.
He visited France again in 1917 where he took particular interest depicting architectural ruins. Two volumes of Bone's wartime drawings were published during the war, ''The Western Front'' and ''With the Grand Fleet''.
He was an active member of the
British War Memorials Committee and helped select which artists received commissions from the committee.
He established the Muirhead Bone Fund to purchase works for the Imperial War Museum with his share of the proceeds of the sale of reproductions of his own works.
After the Armistice, Bone returned to the type of works he produced before the war, and was influential in promoting fellow war artists
William Orpen
Major (United Kingdom), Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who mainly worked in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portrai ...
and
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''Blast (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists.
His ...
. He began to undertake extensive foreign travels, visiting France, Italy and the Netherlands, which increasingly influenced his work.
In 1923 he produced three portraits of the novelist
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
during an Atlantic crossing. An extended visit to Spain in 1929 resulted in the folio ''Old Spain'', a collaboration with his wife who wrote the text, which was published in 1936.
[ In the inter-war period he exhibited extensively in London and New York, building up a considerable reputation. Bone received a ]knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity.
The concept of a knighthood ...
hood in the 1937 Coronation Honours for services to art and he served as a Trustee and on the committees of several institutions including the Tate, the National Gallery and the Imperial War Museum.
Second World War
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Muirhead Bone was appointed a member of the War Artists' Advisory Committee and also became a full-time salaried artist to the Ministry of Information specialising in Admiralty subjects. He produced scenes of coastal installations, evacuated troops and portraits of officers. However, following the death of his son Gavin in 1943, he decided not to continue with the Admiralty commission but he did remain an active Committee member until the end of the war. His other son, Stephen Bone, was subsequently appointed to the vacant Admiralty position.
Death
Bone died on 21 October 1953 in Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
. He was buried in the churchyard adjacent to the St. Mary's Church, Whitegate at Vale Royal
Vale Royal was, from 1974 to 2009, a Non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Cheshire, England. It contained the towns of Northwich, Winsford and Frodsham.
History
The ...
parish in Cheshire. St. Mary's Church Whitegate
He has a memorial stone in
St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
Bibliography and books illustrated

* ''The Yellow Book'' (1897), (Contributor),
* ''Portfolio'' (1899),
* ''Glasgow'' (1901),
* ''Children's Children'' (1908)
* ''Glasgow: Fifty Drawings'' (1911),
[
* ''The Front Line'' (1916),]
* ''The Western Front: Drawings by Muirhead Bone'' (1917), with an introduction by Gen. Sir Douglas Haig and text by C.E. Montague.
* ''Merchant Men-at-Arms'' (1919) by his brother David Bone
* ''With the Grand Fleet''
* ''The London Perambulator'' (1925), by his brother James Bone
* ''Old Spain'', (1936), with Gertrude Bone,[
* ''The London Perambulator'' (1938),]
* ''Days in Old Spain'' (1938), with Gertrude Bone
* ''London Echoing'' (1948),
* ''Hove'' (1948) Watercolour, street scene.
* ''Merchantman Rearmed'' (1949), by his brother David Bone
* ''The English and their Country'' (1952),
* ''Came to Oxford'' (1952), with Gertrude Bone
References
External links
*
*
*
Sir Muirhead Bone exhibition catalogues
*
James Hamilton Muir
(joint pseudonym) at LC Authorities, 2 records
Gertrude Bone
at LC Authorities, 7 records
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bone, Muirhead
1876 births
1953 deaths
Burials in Cheshire
British Army officers
Military personnel from Glasgow
20th-century British printmakers
19th-century Scottish painters
20th-century Scottish painters
Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art
Artists from Glasgow
British Army General List officers
British Army personnel of World War I
British draughtsmen
Knights Bachelor
Royal Marines officers
Royal Marines personnel of World War II
Scottish etchers
Scottish knights
Scottish male painters
Scottish printmakers
Scottish watercolourists
World War I artists
20th-century British war artists
World War II artists
People from Partick
Muirhead