The Edinburgh of Pryde's youth - Holyrood Palace, the tall freestone tenements and closes of the High Street, the lofty classical buildings and porticoed churches and the sunless streets of the New Town - and his parents' passion for the theatre (Henry Irving and Ellen Terry were close friends) were key influences on his life and work. Indeed he had visions of becoming and actor and had a number of small roles in productions by his friend Gordon Craig. Both influences are very evident in The Unknown Corner, painted in the year following a visit to Venice at the invitation of the noted art collector Edmund David and his wife. Mystery and romance are blended in a somewhat theatrical treatment, but without the feeling of gloom that pervades so much of Pryde's work. Yet what does the paintings signify? 

James Pryde, 1866-1941

Pryde does not fit into art movement or school. He was a one-off, a romantic with intense imaginative power, acclaimed by his contemporaries for his vision and originality. A bohemian by nature, he had a melancholic personality that became darker as he got older, and this is reflected in his paintings. His work in the 1910s and early 1920s led fellow artists and critics to regard him as one of the great British painters of the period, but through indolence and, later, alcoholism he failed to capitalise on his exceptional talent. He died in poverty. 

Born in Edinburgh, where his father was Headmaster of Edinburgh Ladies' College, Pryde attended art classes at the Royal Institution and the Royal Scottish Academy's Life Class. In 1888 he enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris, but stayed for only a few months. Later he expressed disdain for formal art training. In 1890 he moved to Hertfordshire, sharing lodgings with his sister, Mabel, who was studying art at Herkomer’s Academy in Bushey. There she met and married William Nicholson. Shortly afterwards Pryde went to visit them for a fortnight and stayed two years. During this period he and Nicholson collaborated as "The Beggarstaffs" on the production of posters, a partnership that revolutionised poster design. 

Pryde was a virtuoso in the handling of paint. His earlier work was mainly studies of people, often ruffians and beggars who frequented the streets and closes of Edinburgh's Old Town. His later work is almost all imaginary pieces - ruins, the façades of buildings, lofty arches and balconies, and gloomy rooms with very high ceilings - usually executed in a restricted range of colours and low tones. Pryde was a master of suggestion, his subject-matter at times romantic, mysterious, claustrophobic, mouldering, sinister or menacing and often all of these. In his later work the figures are invariably insignificant in relation to their surroundings.