E. A. Taylor

Who was E. A. Taylor?

Ernest Archibald Taylor, better known as E A Taylor, was born in Greenock, Scotland, in 1874, the fifteenth of seventeen children of an army major. Taylor initially apprenticed in the Glasgow shipbuilding industry on the River Clyde.

He is best known as a Scottish artist, principally an oil painter and watercolourist, etcher, and designer of furniture, interiors and stained glass.

He trained as an artist at the Glasgow School of Art, where he met and married Jessie M. King in 1908. They initially moved to Salford, where he designed for George Wragge Ltd producing many designs for stained glass. Between 1911 and 1914 the Taylor’s lived in Paris establishing an art school – the Shearling Atelier. The influence of modern French art and the Ballets Russes can be seen in Taylor’s art: his style broadened and he made more use of dramatic outlines.

On their return to Scotland at the outbreak of war, they settled in Kirkcudbright where S J Peploe was a frequent visitor. They established a summer school at High Corrie on the Isle of Arran, as well as locally in Kirkcudbright. Taylor’s work, like that of his wife, became more powerful and dramatic during their time in Dumfries and Galloway, closer in style to the Scottish Colourists.