Portrait of the artist's sister, Emma Gillies - c 1932 by Sir William George Gillies

Mistakenly thought to have been painted in 1922 and exhibited in the 1922 Group exhibition of the following year, it actually dates to 1932 or 1933 and was shown, alongside a portrait of Gillies’s other sister, Janet, as part of his ‘wall’ at the Society of Eight’s exhibition of 1934. It is believed to have been acquired around that time by Mary (Molly) Dickins, née Grierson and a photograph of the work in the William Gillies Archive at the Royal Scottish Academy is annotated in Janet’s handwriting ‘Original sold to Miss Grierson (Mrs Dickson) [sic] Leeds’. Mrs Dickins moved from Edinburgh to Leeds with her husband, Professor Bruce Dickins, in 1931.

Provenance:
Professor Bruce and Mrs Molly Dickins
Aitken Dott & Son, Edinburgh, no.4811
The Fine Art Society Ltd., Edinburgh, no.9823
Private Collection, Switzerland

Exhibited:
The Society of Eight, Twenty-Second Exhibition, The New Gallery, Edinburgh, 11 -31 January 1934, no.64 (£18)
Aitken Dott & Son, Edinburgh, Ground Floor Gallery Opening Exhibition October 1981 
The Fine Art Society Limited, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival Exhibition, 21 August - 11 September 1982

Literature
The Listener, ‘The Society of Eight’, 17 January 1934, p.95, reproduced in black and white, p.107
Joanna Soden and Victoria Keller, William Gillies, Canongate, Edinburgh, 1998, reproduced in black and white, p.58, p.61
Andrew McPherson, The Life, Times and Work of William Gillies 1898-1973, Edinburgh University Press, 2024, p.205, reproduced in black and white, fig.48, pp.206-207, 602 n.40, 700 and 741