Hew LorimerScotland's Silent Sculptor

How the life and work of the stone carver Hew Lorimer became a vibrant expression of the culture and history of modern Scotland

• Examines Hew Lorimer’s visual influences, from Pictish, Gaelic and Scottish symbolism to the Romanesque and Gothic traditions of Britain and France
• Reinterprets Scottish architectural and art history through the overlooked perspective of sculpture
• Explores Lorimer’s role in the conservation movement that preserved the burgh towns of Fife
• Rebalances the story of the Lorimer dynasty by foregrounding the creative influence of the Wyld family
• Uncovers the largely unexplored teaching culture of Edinburgh College of Art in the 1920s and 1930s

This first full account of the life and work of the sculptor Hew Lorimer RSA (1907–1993) places him squarely within profound social, religious and cultural change in twentieth-century Scotland.

In her revelatory study, Katharine Eustace draws on new primary material and combines illuminating biography with vivid art history. Eustace investigates Lorimer’s background and education, while exploring his association with collaborators and with many of Scotland’s leading cultural figures, some from fresh and surprising sources. Specially-commissioned photography, many of the works being recorded for the first time, highlights Lorimer’s exceptional achievement.

Lorimer has been under-appreciated and overlooked, but here his great public commissions, Scottish Beasties at Fasnakyle hydro-electric power station, Allegories for the National Library of Scotland, and Our Lady of the Isles on South Uist are examined in depth, giving full voice at last to Scotland’s silent sculptor.