Louis Deuchars

Louis Reid Deuchars (1870–1927) was a Scottish artist and sculptor.

Life

The Glenelg War Memorial by Deuchars

He was born on 12 April 1870 in Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland.^[1]

He attended Glasgow School of Art from 1887 to 1888. During his time in the city he was working as a stained-glass painter, possibly for a firm of decorators, such as J & W Guthrie. His series of lithographs, 'Picturesque Glasgow' was published in 'The Bailie' (1893–95). After sending a selection of his drawings to George Frederic Watts, 'England's Michelangelo', Deuchars secured work as an assistant to Watts at Compton, Surrey, England, where he worked on Watts' sculptures Physical Energy and Lord Tennyson. However, his main employment there was as one of the four main workers assisting Mrs Watts, Mary Fraser Tytler, with her Watts Mortuary Chapel from 1895 to 1900. He helped her to run the classes attended by the local villagers, who modelled the decorative terra cotta tiles for the chapel. Then he went on in 1900 to do the same job at the Aldourie Pottery, Dores, her enterprise in the Highlands. It was near her childhood home of Aldourie Castle, Inverness-shire. During his association with the Wattses, he learned how to submit works to major art exhibitions & sold several.

Following that he was assistant to the sculptor Sir William Goscombe John in St John's Wood, London. Then he moved to be assistant to another sculptor, William Robert Colton at Hughenden, near High Wycombe.

Deuchars in Edinburgh

Thistle Chapel in St Giles' Cathedral

A promise of work for James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, an Edinburgh sculptor, who was then engaged on a large memorial work to Gladstone (now on Coates Crescent), took Deuchars to Edinburgh, but after a few weeks there was a disagreement and Deuchars found himself without work and he was replaced by William Shirreffs. Fortunately, the architect Robert Lorimer had just embarked on his commission for the new Chapel of the Knights of the Order of the Thistle at St Giles Cathedral. Deuchars's style of modelling appealed to Lorimer with the result that he made all the plaster models for the figure work, inside and outside, carved either in stone by Joseph Hayes & his men, in oak by the Clow brothers, or in bronze cast by the Bromsgrove Guild. This was the start of a profitable lengthy association with Lorimer, although he also continued to exhibit & sell work in various exhibitions. His last & largest work for Lorimer was the bronze group for the Glenelg War Memorial. After that his commissions from Lorimer declined, but, working independently, he did model a large Madonna & Child, a memorial to Miss McLaggan, in Old Saint Paul's, Edinburgh.

Louis Deuchars died on 19 September 1927 and was buried at Saughton Cemetery in south-west Edinburgh. His funeral was attended by all the major figures in the local art world.