View source for Muirhead Bone

{{Short description|Scottish artist (1876–1953)}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox artist
| honorific_prefix = [[Sir]]
| name        = Muirhead Bone
| image       = Portrait of Muirhead Bone - Francis Dodd - ABDAG005967.jpeg
| caption     =  Etching by [[Francis Dodd (artist)|Francis Dodd]], {{circa}} 1925–1949
| birth_date  = {{birth date|1876|3|23|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Glasgow]], Scotland
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1953|10|21|1876|3|23|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Oxford]], England
| field       = Painting, etching, drypoint, drawing
| training    = [[Glasgow School of Art]]
|spouse       = [[Gertrude Bone|Gertrude Helena Dodd]] (m. 1903)
| children    = 2
}}

'''Sir Muirhead Bone''' (23 March 1876 – 21 October 1953) was a Scottish [[Etching|etcher]] and [[Watercolor painting|watercolourist]] who became known for his depiction of industrial and architectural subjects and his work as a war artist in both the [[First World War|First]] and [[Second World War]]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 [[State (printmaking)|states]] 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.<ref name="Harries"/> He promoted the work of many young artists and served as a Trustee of the [[Tate Gallery]], the [[National Gallery]], and the [[Imperial War Museum]].<ref name=MBTate>{{cite web |author=Tate|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sir-muirhead-bone-778|title=Artist biography:Muirhead Bone|accessdate=8 April 2014|work=Tate}}</ref><ref name="WW1Letters"/>

==Early life==
Muirhead Bone was born in [[Partick]], [[Glasgow]]. His parents were journalist David Drummond Bone (1841–1911)<ref name="ScotRef11">[https://www.londonhearts.com/scores/images/1911/1911102701.htm The Late Mr David D. Bone], The Scottish Referee, 27 October 1911 via London Hearts Supporters Club website.</ref> and Elizabeth Millar Crawford (1847–1886). Bone and his siblings attended the local [[Board School|Board school]] and were placed in apprenticeships from the age of fourteen.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |author=Bone, Sylvester. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1156962214 |title=Sir Muirhead Bone. Artist and Patron |year=2009 |publisher=Bayham Publishing |isbn=978-0-9562894-0-7 |oclc=1156962214}}</ref> [[James Bone (journalist)|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 (steamship company)|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.<ref name=":0" />[[Image:Bone, The British Museum Reading Room, May 1907.jpg|thumb|200px|
''The British Museum Reading Room, May 1907'' (1907), [[Tate Gallery]] ]]Bone studied at the [[Glasgow School of Art]], initially at evening classes. There he befriended the artist [[Francis Dodd (artist)|Francis Dodd]] and his sister [[Gertrude Helena Dodd]], to whom he became engaged in 1898.<ref name="DNB">{{Cite ODNB|id=31957|title=Bone, Sir Muirhead}}</ref> He began [[printmaking]] in 1898, his first known print was a [[Lithography|lithograph]] 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.<ref name="Spalding">{{cite book|author=Frances Spalding|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1990|title=20th Century Painters and Sculptors |isbn=1-85149-106-6|author-link=Frances Spalding}}</ref><ref name="ScotPaint" /> The collection of his prints held by the [[British Museum]] contains a number of works based in South Ayrshire, between 1898 and 1916.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?searchText=Muirhead+Bone&place=38885|title=British Museum Collections|access-date=11 April 2018}}</ref> In 1900 he tried to run art classes in Ayr, from newly built premises at Wellington Chambers.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Wellington Chambers|date=10 June 1897|work=The Ayr Advertiser or West Country and Galloway Gazette}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=703431&partId=1&searchText=Muirhead+Bone&place=38885&page=1|title=print advertisement front page|last=Bone|first=Muirhead|website=British Museum Collection|access-date=11 April 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=703430&partId=1&searchText=Muirhead+Bone&place=38885&page=1|title=print advertisement, text page|last=Bone|first=Muirhead|website=British Museum Collection|access-date=11 April 2018}}</ref>

In 1901 Bone moved to London, where he met [[William Strang]], [[Dugald MacColl]] and [[Alphonse Legros]], and became a member of the [[New English Art Club]]. He held his first solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in 1902.<ref name="Spalding"/> Bone was also a member of the [[Glasgow Art Club]] with which he exhibited.<ref name=GHerald>{{cite web |author=Glasgow Herald|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19091204&printsec=frontpage&hl=en |title=''The Glasgow Art Club – Interesting Exhibition'' |date=4 December 1909|accessdate=17 August 2011|work=Glasgow Herald}}</ref> In 1903, Bone had finally achieved enough financial success as an artist that he could afford to marry Gertrude, after a five-year engagement.<ref name="DNB"/> They moved to [[Chiswick]] and had their first son, Stephen, in 1904, and their second son, Gavin, in 1907.<ref name="DNB"/> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=703280&partId=1&searchText=Muirhead+Bone&place=38885&page=1|title=Ayr Prison|last=Muirhead|first=Bone|date=1905|website=British Museum Collection|access-date=11 April 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=702816&partId=1&searchText=Muirhead+Bone&place=38885&page=1|title=Ballantrae Road|last=Bone|first=Muirhead|website=British Museum Collection|access-date=11 April 2018}}</ref>

==First World War and interbellum==
[[Image:Bone, Flanders behind the Lines.jpg|thumb|200px|
''A View in Flanders behind the Lines, Showing Locre and the Tops of Dug-Outs on the Scherpenber'' (1916; Tate, London). ]]
During the First World War, [[Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman|Charles Masterman]], head of the British War Propaganda Bureau, acting on the advice of [[William Rothenstein]], appointed Bone as the first official [[war artist#British|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.<ref name="DBHcrisis">{{cite book|author=David Boyd Haycock|publisher=Old Street Publishing(London)|year=2009|title=A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War|isbn=978-1-905847-84-6}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Gough">{{cite book|author=Paul Gough|publisher=Sansom & Company|year=2010|title='A Terrible Beauty': British Artists in the First World War |isbn=978-1-906593-00-1}}</ref>

Commissioned as an honorary [[second lieutenant]], Bone served as a war artist with the Allied forces on the [[Western Front (World War I)|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 (1916)|Battle of the Somme]] and produced 150 drawings of the war before returning to England in October 1916.<ref name=IWMWD>{{cite web |author=Imperial War Museum|url=http://archive.iwm.org.uk/server/show/nav.2341|title=The Battle of the Somme – Muirhead Bone|accessdate=10 October 2013|work=Imperial War Museum}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Efforts">{{cite book|author=Mari Gordon (Series Editor)|publisher=National Museum of Wales|year=2014|title=The Great War:Britain's Efforts and Ideals|isbn=9780720006278}}</ref> 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''.<ref name="ScotPaint">{{cite book|author=Paul Harris & Julian Halsby|publisher=Canongate|year=1990|title=The Dictionary of Scottish Painters 1600 to the Present|isbn=1-84195-150-1}}</ref> He was an active member of the [[British War Memorials Committee]] and helped select which artists received commissions from the committee.<ref name="Harries">{{cite book|author=Merion Harries & Susie Harries|publisher=Michael Joseph, The Imperial War Museum & the Tate Gallery|year=1983|title=The War Artists, British Official War Art of the Twentieth Century |isbn=0-7181-2314-X}}</ref> 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.<ref>[https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1050000060 'Bone, Muirhead'], Imperial War Museum War Artist Archive. Retrieved 1 March 2025.</ref>

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]] and [[Wyndham Lewis]]. He began to undertake extensive foreign travels, visiting France, Italy and the Netherlands, which increasingly influenced his work.<ref name="ScotPaint"/> In 1923 he produced three portraits of the novelist [[Joseph Conrad]] 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.<ref name=MBTate/> In the inter-war period he exhibited extensively in London and New York, building up a considerable reputation. Bone received a [[knight]]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.<ref name="WW1Letters">{{cite book|author=Paul Gough|publisher=Sansom & Company|year=2011|title=Your Loving Friend, Stanley|isbn=978-1-906593-76-6}}</ref>

==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 (United Kingdom)|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.<ref name="Foss">{{cite book|author=Brain Foss|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2007|title=War paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain, 1939–1945 |isbn=978-0-300-10890-3}}</ref>

==Death==
Bone died on 21 October 1953 in [[Oxford]]. He was buried in the churchyard adjacent to the St. Mary's Church, [[Whitegate, Cheshire|Whitegate]] at [[Vale Royal]] parish in Cheshire.<ref>[http://www.stmaryswhitegate.org/administration.html  St. Mary's Church Whitegate] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728064632/http://www.stmaryswhitegate.org/administration.html |date=28 July 2011 }}: [http://www.stmaryswhitegate.org/history.html  history] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111005050836/http://www.stmaryswhitegate.org/history.html |date=5 October 2011 }}</ref> He has a memorial stone in [[St. Paul's Cathedral]] in London.<ref name=Memorial>{{cite web |url=http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/51fab248.html|title=Memorial to Muirhead Bone|accessdate=18 January 2017|work=The Courtauld Institute of Art}}</ref>

==Bibliography and books illustrated==
[[File:War Drawings by Muirhead Bone- Chateau near Brie on the Somme Art.IWMREPRO00068459.jpg|thumb|''Chateau near Brie on the Somme'' (1918), Art.IWM REPRO00068459]]
[[File:War Drawings by Muirhead Bone- Tanks Art.IWMREPRO0006847.jpg|thumb|''Tanks'' (1918), Art.IWM REPRO 0006847]]
{{incomplete list|date=July 2014}}
* ''The Yellow Book'' (1897), (Contributor),<ref name="ScotAA"/>
* ''Portfolio'' (1899),<ref name=Brit>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/72902/Sir-Muirhead-Bone |title=Sir Muirhead Bone|accessdate=23 July 2014|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref>
* ''Glasgow'' (1901),<ref name="ScotAA">{{cite book|author=Peter J.M. McEwan|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1994|title=The Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture|isbn=1-85149-134-1}}</ref>
* ''Children's Children'' (1908)<ref name="ScotAA"/>
* ''Glasgow: Fifty Drawings'' (1911),<ref name=Brit/>
* ''The Front Line'' (1916),<ref name="ScotAA"/>
* ''The Western Front: Drawings by Muirhead Bone'' (1917), with an introduction by [[Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig|Gen. Sir Douglas Haig]] and text by C.E. Montague.
* ''Merchant Men-at-Arms'' (1919)<ref name="ScotAA"/> by his brother David Bone
* ''With the Grand Fleet''
* ''The London Perambulator'' (1925), by his brother James Bone
* ''Old Spain'', (1936), with [[Gertrude Bone]],<ref name=MBTate/>
* ''The London Perambulator'' (1938),<ref name="ScotAA"/>
* ''Days in Old Spain'' (1938), with [[Gertrude Bone]]<ref name="ScotAA"/>
* ''London Echoing'' (1948),<ref name="ScotAA"/>
* ''Hove'' (1948) Watercolour, street scene.
* ''Merchantman Rearmed'' (1949),<ref name="ScotAA"/> by his brother David Bone
* ''The English and their Country'' (1952),<ref name="ScotAA"/>
* ''Came to Oxford'' (1952), with [[Gertrude Bone]]<ref name="ScotAA"/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Muirhead Bone}}
{{Portal |Visual arts}}
* {{Art UK bio}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=35570| name=Muirhead Bone}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Muirhead Bone}}
* [http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/field/subjec/searchterm/Bone,%20Muirhead,%20Sir,%201876-1953%20--%20Exhibitions/mode/exact Sir Muirhead Bone exhibition catalogues]
* {{LCAuth|n83022727|Sir Muirhead Bone|32|ue}}
* [https://lccn.loc.gov/n2001157465 James Hamilton Muir] (joint pseudonym) at LC Authorities, 2 records
* [https://lccn.loc.gov/no2006055282 Gertrude Bone] at LC Authorities, 7 records

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bone, Muirhead}}
[[Category:1876 births]]
[[Category:1953 deaths]]
[[Category:Burials in Cheshire]]
[[Category:British Army officers]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Glasgow]]
[[Category:20th-century British printmakers]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish painters]]
[[Category:20th-century Scottish painters]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art]]
[[Category:Artists from Glasgow]]
[[Category:British Army General List officers]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:British draughtsmen]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Royal Marines officers]]
[[Category:Royal Marines personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:Scottish etchers]]
[[Category:Scottish knights]]
[[Category:Scottish male painters]]
[[Category:Scottish printmakers]]
[[Category:Scottish watercolourists]]
[[Category:World War I artists]]
[[Category:20th-century British war artists]]
[[Category:World War II artists]]
[[Category:People from Partick]]
[[Category:Bone family|Muirhead]]