George Fiddes Watt (15 February 1873 – 22 November 1960) was a Scottish portrait painter and engraver.

Life Watt was born on 15 February 1873 in Aberdeen. He studied art at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen and the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. He was elected to the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in 1924 and received an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of Aberdeen in 1955.

Watt's work was exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1906 to 1930. His portrait of his mother is in the Tate Gallery's collection. Watt was sculpted by Henry Snell Gamley in 1912, Watt's son Albert having been sculpted by Gamley four years previously.Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951 http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib6_1210158597 A bronze statue of Watt by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones, made in 1942, is in Aberdeen.

His third son, Alexander Stuart Watt (1909–1967) was a journalist based in Paris. Alastair Fiddes Watt (born 1954) is also a landscape painter. Watt died on 22 November 1960 in Aberdeen.

Works

Watt's large output includes paintings of many famous people of his time in Britain. An exception among the many portraits is a landscape, J. P. Inverarity Mauled by a Lioness, Somaliland .

Portraits

Lawyers Viscount Haldane (Lincoln's Inn) Viscount Reading (Middle Temple) Alexander Low, Lord Low (The Laws) Divines William Paterson Paterson

Scientists Sir J. J. Thomson (Royal Society)

Politicians H. H. Asquith A. J. Balfour (National Portrait Gallery) Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon Sir William Slater Brown, Lord Provost of Edinburgh

Academics Thomas Martin LindsayThomas Martin Lindsay, portrait by George Fiddes Watt at bbc.co.uk/arts/, accessed 19 June 2013

Mezzotint engravings

Robert Bannatyne Finlay (Royal Courts of Justice)

References

Bibliography

Chamot, Mary; Farr, Dennis; Butlin, Martin. The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II.

External links

Wattart.com: Family: George Fiddes Watt Invaluable: George Fiddes Watt Aberdeen Art Gallery: portrait of George Fiddes Watt, 1911