Rather than moving from figuration to abstraction, then – the path traced by many modernist artists – Low jumped directly from a form of social realism to a fully-fledged lyrical expressionism, before finding a middle ground of sorts in the big, dreamy landscapes of 1967 and after. (That was the year she purchased a holiday cottage on the Orkney island of Hoy, depicted in many subsequent works.) It’s not so much a case of looking for traces of a youthful, representative approach in a more developed, abstract phase, but of finding the surviving spirit of abstraction in a resurgent representational stye. In the Orcadian scenes, that quest to find the ‘mood and atmosphere of Nature’ remains evident; the end result is a daring minimalism. Only the huge solemn half-oval of a typical Hoy hill remains; or the horizontal blues and greens of Sea and Sky; or a fine haze suggesting light or mist falling on land.

For those seeking an instant encounter with this, the most singular aspect of Low’s work, head to the section entitled ‘Bet Low and Orkney’. Paintings like ‘No. 2 Sun and Hills in Mist’ (n.d.) and ‘Horizon’ (1972) get the point across marvellously. ‘In The Hoy Hills’ (1972) incorporates a more naturalistic colour palette and finer facture to gesture towards a monumental, bleak romanticism, inspired by treeless Orcadian expanses. But Brownrigg’s statement about those distinct phases of Low’s career also suggests that variety is part of its charm. It would be a shame, then, only to dwell on the barren island peaks.

Having grown up in a working-class household on the Clyde estuary, Low described entering Glasgow School of Art in 1942 as like coming home. This suggests both the space she found for personal creative development and the left-leaning cultural milieu in which she immersed herself. Indeed, the spirit of the collective is an aspect of Low’s practice returned to again and again in An Island on Your Doorstep (which will travel to Pier Arts Centre in Orkney after its run in Glasgow). There was, for example, her phase as a set painter for the Glasgow Unity Theatre, formed at the start of the Second World War from various anti-Fascist performance groups. In the first gallery space we find warm-hearted portraits of actors such as Lothar Lowenstein (there was a strong Jewish contingent in the group, including actors fleeing Nazi- occupied Europe), set hands (as in ‘Old Larry Odd Job Man’ [n.d.]), and more. The emphasis is on the collective labour of the group rather than the glamour of the stage. Later, Low would bring a similar egalitarian sentiment to her work with the New Charing Cross Gallery (1963- 68), through which many of her Clyde Group contemporaries found success.

The black-and-white linocuts and ink drawings of 1940s-50s Glasgow are similarly abrim with social awareness. Low came of age at a time when the city was undergoing the privations of war, and a heady political atmosphere prevailed in the years following armistice. ‘Warsaw/Peace Protest’ (1954) and ‘Co-op Women: May-Day Procession’ (c.1940s) are crowd scenes in a quasi-cartoonish, post-expressionist style influenced by the Polish-Jewish artist Josef Hermann, who moved to Glasgow as a refugee in 1940-41. These pieces, and those set in children’s hospitals and tuberculosis wards, suggest an empathy rooted in a financially cramped childhood.

Perhaps we can also sense, however, that Low was going to seek escape from the urban environment at some point. There is a grim, pinched look to many of the faces on display, and the enclosing streets and buildings are all thick, jagged black lines. The linocut ‘Edinburgh Festival Club’ (1947) has a George Grosz quality to it, with skeletal, pouting faces suggesting exactly what Low made of the wealthy Scottish arts establishment. Several contemporaneous works show the artist Ian Hamilton Finlay (a contemporary at GSA) with his first wife Marion, and the environs of their Perthshire cottage. These are grim, grimy pieces, too, in spite of their bucolic setting – no doubt reflecting the tempestuousness of that marriage.

When the abstracts appear in the early 1960s, they partly carry with them a palpable sense of expansiveness and release. Blocky planes of intermingling yellow, green, and blue, with sinuous lines and tendrils reaching down or across, capture the feeling of water in various states of motion: from ‘Green Calm’ (n.d.) to the fast-flowing ‘Estuary’ (1968). It’s a surprising step into the wild, but one which recalls the nature on Low’s doorstep as a child, when the green spaces of the Inverclyde Valley were never far away.

This is a truly wide-ranging show, and more time could be spent exploring Low’s various collaborative projects, or her remarkable pencil sketches, which evoke moonscapes and forest depths through ultra-fine, repetitive mark-making. A visit to the island on your doorstep (either in Glasgow or Stromness) is recommended.

Bet Low, An Island On Your Doorstep is exhibiting at Reid Gallery at Glasgow School of Art until 8th February 2025, and then Pier Arts Orkney between 8th March until 7th June.