Louise Reid Deuchars (1870-1927) and the relationship between sculptors and architects

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between sculptors and architects through the biography and catalogue raisonné of Louis Reid Deuchars (1870 - 1927). His career is documented from the early days in Glasgow, to time spent with G. F. Watts and his wife Mary Seton Watts while working on the Compton Chapel, assistantships with Sir William Goscombe John, William Robert Colton, and briefly James Pittendrigh Macgillivray before settling in Edinburgh. He prepared maquettes for the Mount Stuart altar designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson and had work from Harold Tarbolton, but his main source of income from 1908 to 1919 was Sir Robert Lorimer. Plaster models for stone and wood carving in the Thistle Chapel progressed to chimneypiece panels and true sculpture, ending with the heroic bronze war memorial at Glenelg. Although Deuchars's work considerably enhanced Lorimer's commissions, his contribution was largely anonymous. The opposition by the sculptors, Pittendrigh Macgillivray and William Bimie Rhind, to Lorimer's election to membership of the Royal Scottish Academy has been documented, but this thesis demonstrates the central role of Deuchars and the Glenelg war memorial. Thereafter he had little work from Lorimer, but succeeding sculptors were duly acknowledged.