Horatio McCulloch RSA, 1805-1867

Born in Glasgow, the son of a well-to-do merchant, McCulloch decorated snuff boxes in Cumnock and coloured bookplates for the Edinburgh engraver William Home Lizars before deciding to concentrate on landscape painting. With Daniel Macnee and William Leighton Leitch, McCulloch studied under the landscape painted John Knox. His early subjects are all near Glasgow, but later he worked mainly in the Highlands, often en plein air. He was influenced by the work of the Reverend John Thomson of Duddingston and Hugh William Williams - "Grecian" Williams. McCulloch revelled in painting the grandeur and wildness of the Highlands. His paintings were very popular, particularly through the medium of engravings. McCulloch and the English artist Sir Edwin Landseer contributed more than any other artists to the popular Victorian image of the Highlands, one that to a great extent still persists.