A skilled watercolourist, Cameron excelled at close up studies of plant life. Her earlier flower pieces from the 1890s and early 1900s tend to be rich in colour and wet in technique but this developed into a more delicate style with restrained colour. ‘Jack go to bed at noon’ is another name for meadow salsify, named so for its trait of closing up on sunny days.

Katherine Cameron RSW RE, 1874-1965

Cameron was born in Hillhead, Glasgow, the daughter of a country minister and an artistic mother, who would surely have fostered creativity in both the young Cameron and her older brother, the landscape painter D. Y. Cameron. Cameron trained at Glasgow School of Art, under the visionary director, Fra Newbery, and later in Paris at the Atelier Colarossi. A skilled watercolourist, with early influences of the Glasgow Symbolists, Cameron particularly excelled at close up studies of plant life and was regarded as one of the finest flower painters of her generation. She was a prominent member of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists and her work, which also included book illustration and etching, was exhibited widely at home, at the RA, RSA and RGI, and internationally. Cameron's work received fresh recognition in the 1988 Glasgow Girls exhibition at the Glasgow School of Art.