Cecile Walton

Cecile Walton (29 March 1891 – 23 April 1956) was a Scottish painter, illustrator and sculptor. She and her husband Eric were two of the moving spirits of the Edinburgh chapter of the Symbolist movement in the early 20th century.

Life

Walton was born in Glasgow, the eldest of four children and daughter of the artists Helen and Edward Arthur Walton. In 1893, when Walton was two years old, her family moved to London, where from 1902 her neighbour was James Abbott McNeill Whistler. In 1904, the Waltons moved again to Edinburgh, and Walton was taught etching by John Duncan at his home, where she also met artists and writers, including Dorothy Johnstone and, in 1907, Eric Robertson. She also attended the Edinburgh College of Art where, in place of drawing, she took Percy Portsmouth's sculpture modelling class. While still a student, Walton was elected to the Society of Scottish Artists in 1908, exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy from 1909 and the Royal Glasgow Institute from 1910, and she showed at the Royal Academy in London from 1913. Walton remarried in 1936 to producer Gordon Gildard, with whom she moved to Glasgow, however this was another short-lived marriage and she divorced in 1945.

Walton is best known for her ironic self-portrait Romance, in which she depicts herself as a latter-day Olympia, critically inspecting her newborn son Edward, while both are watched by his sibling Gavril.

Gallery