When Eleanor Allen Moore was still a child her family moved from
Northern Ireland to Ayrshire so that her father could take up an
appointment as minister of Loudoun Parish Church in Newmilns. From
an early age Eleanor had demonstrated artistic talent in painting
and after finishing school she went to study at Glasgow School of
Art under the inspirational Francis Newbery.
The first of her works to be publicly exhibited was a self
-portrait,
The Silk Dress at the Glasgow Institute. In 1914 her
career as a painter was interrupted by World War One. During this
period she worked as a nurse in a hospital in Edinburgh set up to
accommodate the war wounded.
In 1922 she married Dr. Robert Cecil Robertson - a Kilmarnock man.
When he was appointed to a post with the Shanghai Municipal
Council, his family moved with him to China. Here, for twelve years
they enjoyed a life-style which enabled the artist to travel and
record the lives of the ordinary people in watercolour sketches, as
they explored the Yantze River delta by houseboat. Hostilities
broke out between China and Japan in 1937, at which point the
family was evacuated and returned to Scotland. The art world to
which Eleanor Robertson returned after her years in China had
undergone considerable change. At this point she ceased to actively
pursue her career as a professional painter.
The influence of the Glasgow Boys is evident in Robertson's work
and she herself was termed one of the 'Glasgow Girls'. In China she
often worked in watercolour, a medium which allowed her to work
quickly, grasping the brief opportunities which arose to record
people and places and waterborne traffic as the family houseboat
travelled around the islands and canals of the Yantze river
delta.
Robertson did not adopt the conventions of traditional Chinese
art. As her daughter, Ailsa Tanner wrote, she 'loved Chinese art
but was not influenced by it'. It may, however, be possible to
discern in her work during this period, something of the character
of Chinese calligraphy which was also executed with brush and water
based medium and in which precise meaning is conveyed by means of
deft and economical strokes. From ancient times in China,
calligraphy had itself been respected as an art form which was not
distinguished from drawing.
The Dick Institute also owns three paintings by Eleanor
Robertson;
Chinese Children,
Junk Girl and
Flute Player.
