| George was born in Waterside, Lanarkshire
in 1864, the son of a cotton broker. He was educated at Glasgow
Academy and Madras College, St. Andrews. He studied art at the
Edinburgh School of Art and also at the Royal Scottish Academy, where
he was supported by Robert Alexander RSA. He moved to Tangiers,
Morocco to paint and buy horses and when his money ran out he moved to London to work
as a painter and illustrator and shared a studio with Phil May.
He met Joseph Crawhall on a hunting and painting holiday, and they
both ran a stud farmhouse in Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, England.
In 1898, he got married, and Crawhall was his best man at the wedding.
He did illustrations for The Graphic, Punch and Country Life.
In 1910, he studied military equestrianism at the Spanish Riding
School in Vienna, Austria. In 1913, he became an honorary member of
the Meadowbrook Polo Club.
During
the First World War, he commanded a cavalry squadron, eventually
rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel with the British Salonika
Force. He was awarded the OBE in 1919. He specialised in sporting
drawings and his early work was published in the Graphic and Punch
from 1896. He also contributed to Sporting & Dramatic News, Country
Life and Tatler, and other sporting publications. He also painted
equestrian portraits of society figures.
When his wife died in 1924, he remarried and lived in Malmesbury.
He became a member of the Royal Scottish Academy. He died in Wiltshire
on 17 February 1949. |
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