The subject of this work, exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1919, was the daughter of the painter E.A. Walton, then in her late twenties. As a child Cecile showed artistic talent and was enchantingly depicted by her father and she went on to become one of the most notable Scottish women artists of her time. She often spent her summers painting in Kirkcudbright with her friend Dorothy Johnstone. In this portrait, painted there in the open air, she is shown reclining with some of the colourful voluptuousness of a Matisse odalisque, but her serious expression is at odds with her relaxed pose. In 1914 she had married the painter E.H.M. Robertson, despite strong opposition from her parents; the marriage proved disastrous for both partners, artistically and personally, and ended in 1923. She left her husband, spent a period in Vienna with Johnstone and the two women held a joint exhibition in Edinburgh the following year. Johnstone herself was to remain happily married to fellow-artist D.M. Sutherland for almost fifty years, from 1924 till his death in 1973.

Dorothy Johnstone ARSA, 1892-1980

Born in Edinburgh, the daughter of the landscape painter George Whitton Johnstone, Johnstone studied at Edinburgh College of Art, winning a travelling scholarship to Italy in 1910. She joined the staff of the college in 1914, but had to give up her post on her marriage to the artist D.M. Sutherland in 1924. Johnstone was a gifted member of the Edinburgh Group, exhibiting at all three shows mounted by the group in 1919-21.
From 1915 to 1924 Johnstone spent most summers at Kirkcudbright, which supported a noted artists' colony. In September 1918 Cecile Walton, the artist wife of Eric Robertson and daughter of E.A. Walton, visited Johnstone at Greengate Close, one of the cottages rented out as summer studios by the artist Jessie King and E.A. Taylor. Cecile Walton, Johnstone's portrait of her close friend, was painted in the countryside behind Kirkcudbright on that occasion and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy the following year.
Johnstone, Cecile Walton and Robertson were recognised as the three leading figures in the Edinburgh Group, and their styles of painting were closely linked, although the group as a whole did not have a distinctive style.
It was during the years up to 1924 that Johnstone produced her best works. Like many women artists of this period, she was forced to put her artistic career on hold after marrying. She did, however, continue to paint, producing landscapes and paintings of her family.