Gillies specialised in landscapes and still lifes. He experimented with cubism for a short time which often came through in his still lifes, but, by nature, he preferred the traditional.

Sir William George Gillies RA RSA PRSW, 1898-1973

Gillies was born in Haddington, East Lothian. His training at Edinburgh College of Art between 1916 and 1922 was interrupted by two years' war service in France. He and William MacTaggart were among the artists who formed the '22 Group, exhibiting at Edinburgh's New Gallery between 1923 and 1928. Awarded a travelling scholarship, Gillies studied in Paris with André Lhote in 1923-24 before visiting Italy. In 1926 he took up a part-time position under David Alison at Edinburgh College of Art, where he became Head of Drawing and Painting in 1946. He was principal from 1960 to 1966, exerting a powerful influence on the younger generation on painters. Gillies worked in oil and watercolour, but it is as a watercolour painter of Scotland's landscape - particularly Lothian and the Borders - that he is best remembered.