Born in Inverness in 1941 Will Maclean was a midshipman before attending Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen. In 1981 he started as a lecturer at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, becoming Professor of Fine Art in 1994. He was elected Royal Scottish Academician in 1991. In 2005 he was awarded an MBE for services to Education and the Arts. He lives and works in Tayport, Fife with his wife, the artist Marian Leven.
Maclean is a painter, printmaker and sculptor whose work is often related to the history and culture of the Scottish Highlands with particular reference to maritime themes. In 1991 Maclean produced ‘A Night of Islands’ at Peacock for Paragon Press, an impressive suite of ten colour etchings with aquatint inspired by Gaelic poetry and sketchbooks containing daily observations and experimental work.
Maclean produced a run of single colour etchings in the years after the suite was released from which this is one.
The hero, if that is the word, of 'Elegy to Captain Ferguson' was an infamous arsonist and pillager - he burned down Rassay House - who went round with Hanoverians after the '45 commiting atrocities and was hated throughout the Highlands. In the poem five mountains are discussing news of his drowning, which unfortunately wasn't true. The image is at once a head and a landscape, and the details can be read in different ways; the mouth is an upturned boat, for example, and the nostrils are also whales.
- Alan Woods from 'The Artist As Voyager' New work by Richard Demarco & Will Maclean publication produced by Peacock, 1991
Paper Size: 65 x 50 cm
Medium: Etching
Edition Size: 30
Year: 1993