Edgar’s style is spontaneous, simplified and painterly in this study of camellias, although his larger set pieces tend to be more finished, complex arrangements of bouquets, fruit and drapery. His work is in the tradition both of late 19th century flower painters such as Fantin Latour and Manet, and of the Scottish Colourists. He paints with pure colour, sensitive to the nuances of reflected and refracted hues, but is not afraid to use the glossy blacks Manet employed, as in the background of this vibrant and powerful image.
Biographical details
Norman Edgar was born in Paisley in 1948, and studied at the Glasgow School Art (1966-70) under David Donaldson. He later taught art himself, becoming a full-time painter in 1990. He was elected a member of the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Art (1991), and in 1993 he became President of the Glasgow Art Club. He exhibits regularly at the RGI and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London, and has had numerous one-man shows. He has been commissioned by private and corporate clients and by institutions, and his work hangs in collections across the world.
He produces landscapes, still life paintings and portraits; his portraits of Cardinal Thomas Winning, Archbishop of Glasgow, 1994, and of Winifred Ewing, MEP & MSP, 1999, are in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.