Huntington was both a celebrated portrait painter and an accomplished musician. In 1924, she travelled to Leipzig to study under the cellist Julius Klengel and on returning to Scotland painted this work of musician, Isobel Forrest Neillands. The angular, volumetric forms of the face show an awareness of the European avant-garde, particularly Cubism, while the use of bold colours reveals her interest in the Scottish Colourist tradition.

Beatrice Huntington, 1889-1988

Beatrice Huntington was a celebrated Scottish protrait painter in the 1920s and 1930s. She was born in St Andrews and trained in Paris, Munich and London. Huntington was also a celebrated cellist, having studied the cello in Leipzig. She moved to Dundee after WWI to study under the painter William Macdonald whom she later married in 1925. The two artists moved to a flat on Hanover Street, Edinburgh in 1929, spending the rest of their lives living their whilst travelling extensively throughout Europe.