Basil Skinner (1927-1995)
Born in Edinburgh in 1927 Basil Skinner was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University. His studies were interrupted by the second world war, but after service in the Normandy campaign and later in the Intelligence Corps, he completed his history degree, gaining the Cousin Prize in fine art.
After the war his first post was as librarian at Glasgow School of Art, then in 1954 he and Lydia moved to Edinburgh where Basil had been appointed assistant keeper at the the Scottish National Portrait Gallery at the early age of 31. Between 1954 and 1966, when he left the Portrait Gallery to join the Extra-Mural Department of Edinburgh University, Basil curated and wrote catalogues for a number of exhibitions at the SNPG (notably ‘Scots in Italy’ in 1963), and published short monographs such as ‘Burns – the Authentic Likenesses’ (1959), ‘Scottish History in Perspective’ (1964) and ‘Scots in Italy in the Eighteenth Century’ (1966). But perhaps his most crucial contribution to the field of Scottish art history during these years was the programme of surveys of important private collections he undertook for the Scottish National Galleries, an exercise which involved travelling to Scotland’s landed estates to catalogue and photograph their collections of paintings. It was this fieldwork that gave him his apparently effortless command not only of the oeuvres of Scottish painters working in Scotland and abroad, but also of the lives, foibles and eccentricities of their patrons. One such visit to Hopetoun House turned into a more lasting commitment as his survey led - at the suggestion of the Marquess of Linlithgow - to a longer term involvement cataloguing the important collection of family papers. This in turn led to Basil taking a leading role in the foundation of the Hopetoun House Preservation Trust, one of the first charitable trusts of its kind in Scotland, an initiative which enshrined the status of Hopetoun as a national monument and enabled access by the general public to Scotland’s finest stately home.
With his move to the University and appointment in 1975 as head of the Extra-Mural Department fewer newspaper articles appeared, as his milieu shifted from the printed page to the lecture theatre where – few would argue – his talents as an educator and ‘conveyor of enthusiasm’ were deployed to maximum effect. His lecture series were invariably popular and often over-subscribed. He believed strongly in giving students of all ages the skills to conduct their own historical research, and was an advocate of local history groups and a hands-on approach to fieldwork – famously filling a stagecoach with students in order to explore at first hand the practicalities of transport in the turnpike age. (Finding they had to get out and push the vehicle up the steeper ascents can only have reinforced the educational value of the outing.) Publications which emerged from extra-mural study courses included ‘The Lime Industry in the Lothians’ (University of Edinburgh 1969) and ‘The Iron Works at Cramond’ (University of Edinburgh, 1965).
Basil continued to be asked to assemble and curate exhibitions for bodies such as the Edinburgh Festival, the Arts Council and the City of Edinburgh, among them the Scott Bicentenary Exhibition (1971), ‘The Indefatigable Mr Allan’ (1973) and ‘King James VI and I’ (1975). He was active in several campaigns to protect vital examples of Scotland’s built heritage, including the Union Canal (when a five-mile stretch was to be infilled), the Dean Village, Edinburgh’s New Town and even the Scottish National Portrait Gallery itself, when this was threatened with closure in 1993. His knowledge and insight made him a valuable member of numerous committees, including the executive committee of the National Trust for Scotland, the Scottish Development Agency’s Conservation Committee, the Cockburn Association and the Old Edinburgh Club. He was elected an honorary member of the Saltire Society the year before his death, and was awarded an O.B.E. for services to Scottish education.
From 1955 until 1983 Basil and Lydia lived in Kirkbrae House on the Dean Bridge – an architectural amalgam of seventeenth-century vernacular and neo-baronial fantasy perched on the side of Randolph Cliff on the edge of Edinburgh’s New Town. The house soon became not just a family home but a byword for hospitality, both for the lodgers who inhabited its lower regions and for the many friends and visitors to Edinburgh who came to parties at ‘the house on the bridge’. The serious academic side of Basil was matched throughout his career by an irreverent sense of humour. His director at the Portrait Gallery awoke one Sunday morning in his rural home outside Edinburgh to find his chickens inexplicably sharing their enclosure with a motley collection of stuffed seabirds and birds of prey. His immediate reaction was to telephone Basil for an explanation. The birds were one of Basil and Lydia’s many bizarre auction purchases – another was an enormous canvas by a justifiably obscure Victorian painter showing waves crashing against bare cliffs. In their hands the painting acquired some collaged additions in the form of a female figure dressed in a morning gown discovering a large egg lying among the wave-splashed rocks. A photograph of the embellished painting was sent to Country Life, accompanied by a letter from its purported owner (a Miss Rose Trellis), inviting suggestions from experts as to its meaning. For several weeks replies were received and published from earnest mid-western academics offering helpful iconographic interpretations.
Born in Edinburgh in 1927 Basil Skinner was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University. His studies were interrupted by the second world war, but after service in the Normandy campaign and later in the Intelligence Corps, he completed his history degree, gaining the Cousin Prize in fine art.
After the war his first post was as librarian at Glasgow School of Art, then in 1954 he and Lydia moved to Edinburgh where Basil had been appointed assistant keeper at the the Scottish National Portrait Gallery at the early age of 31. Between 1954 and 1966, when he left the Portrait Gallery to join the Extra-Mural Department of Edinburgh University, Basil curated and wrote catalogues for a number of exhibitions at the SNPG (notably ‘Scots in Italy’ in 1963), and published short monographs such as ‘Burns – the Authentic Likenesses’ (1959), ‘Scottish History in Perspective’ (1964) and ‘Scots in Italy in the Eighteenth Century’ (1966). But perhaps his most crucial contribution to the field of Scottish art history during these years was the programme of surveys of important private collections he undertook for the Scottish National Galleries, an exercise which involved travelling to Scotland’s landed estates to catalogue and photograph their collections of paintings. It was this fieldwork that gave him his apparently effortless command not only of the oeuvres of Scottish painters working in Scotland and abroad, but also of the lives, foibles and eccentricities of their patrons. One such visit to Hopetoun House turned into a more lasting commitment as his survey led - at the suggestion of the Marquess of Linlithgow - to a longer term involvement cataloguing the important collection of family papers. This in turn led to Basil taking a leading role in the foundation of the Hopetoun House Preservation Trust, one of the first charitable trusts of its kind in Scotland, an initiative which enshrined the status of Hopetoun as a national monument and enabled access by the general public to Scotland’s finest stately home.
With his move to the University and appointment in 1975 as head of the Extra-Mural Department fewer newspaper articles appeared, as his milieu shifted from the printed page to the lecture theatre where – few would argue – his talents as an educator and ‘conveyor of enthusiasm’ were deployed to maximum effect. His lecture series were invariably popular and often over-subscribed. He believed strongly in giving students of all ages the skills to conduct their own historical research, and was an advocate of local history groups and a hands-on approach to fieldwork – famously filling a stagecoach with students in order to explore at first hand the practicalities of transport in the turnpike age. (Finding they had to get out and push the vehicle up the steeper ascents can only have reinforced the educational value of the outing.) Publications which emerged from extra-mural study courses included ‘The Lime Industry in the Lothians’ (University of Edinburgh 1969) and ‘The Iron Works at Cramond’ (University of Edinburgh, 1965).
Basil continued to be asked to assemble and curate exhibitions for bodies such as the Edinburgh Festival, the Arts Council and the City of Edinburgh, among them the Scott Bicentenary Exhibition (1971), ‘The Indefatigable Mr Allan’ (1973) and ‘King James VI and I’ (1975). He was active in several campaigns to protect vital examples of Scotland’s built heritage, including the Union Canal (when a five-mile stretch was to be infilled), the Dean Village, Edinburgh’s New Town and even the Scottish National Portrait Gallery itself, when this was threatened with closure in 1993. His knowledge and insight made him a valuable member of numerous committees, including the executive committee of the National Trust for Scotland, the Scottish Development Agency’s Conservation Committee, the Cockburn Association and the Old Edinburgh Club. He was elected an honorary member of the Saltire Society the year before his death, and was awarded an O.B.E. for services to Scottish education.
From 1955 until 1983 Basil and Lydia lived in Kirkbrae House on the Dean Bridge – an architectural amalgam of seventeenth-century vernacular and neo-baronial fantasy perched on the side of Randolph Cliff on the edge of Edinburgh’s New Town. The house soon became not just a family home but a byword for hospitality, both for the lodgers who inhabited its lower regions and for the many friends and visitors to Edinburgh who came to parties at ‘the house on the bridge’. The serious academic side of Basil was matched throughout his career by an irreverent sense of humour. His director at the Portrait Gallery awoke one Sunday morning in his rural home outside Edinburgh to find his chickens inexplicably sharing their enclosure with a motley collection of stuffed seabirds and birds of prey. His immediate reaction was to telephone Basil for an explanation. The birds were one of Basil and Lydia’s many bizarre auction purchases – another was an enormous canvas by a justifiably obscure Victorian painter showing waves crashing against bare cliffs. In their hands the painting acquired some collaged additions in the form of a female figure dressed in a morning gown discovering a large egg lying among the wave-splashed rocks. A photograph of the embellished painting was sent to Country Life, accompanied by a letter from its purported owner (a Miss Rose Trellis), inviting suggestions from experts as to its meaning. For several weeks replies were received and published from earnest mid-western academics offering helpful iconographic interpretations.