Born Aberdeen, 31 Oct; died Oakhill, Somerset, 9 Feb. Painter in oil and watercolour, also illustrator; portraits and landscapes. Educated at Aberdeen GS. At the age of 13 apprenticed to a lithographer but in 1862 moved to Edinburgh to study at the Trustees Academy before proceeding to further studies in Paris and Utrecht in the studio of Alexander Mollinger. This visit to Holland in 1866, supported by his patron the Aberdeen collector John Forbes White, heralded a change in his career. He became a close friend of Josef Israels, whose portrait he painted when visiting The Hague. In 1870 Israels visited Aberdeen and the effects of his association with Reid became increasingly apparent. In 1872 Reid professed to preferring landscape painting to portraiture although he continued the latter throughout his life. His assured and vivid style quickly attracted notice and he soon established himself as Scotland's leading portrait painter. Moved from Aberdeen to Edinburgh in 1884. Encouraged by White who was particularly fond of a flower painting by Diaz, Reid painted a number of flower pieces during the late 1870s and early 1880s, of which one example is in Aberdeen AG. His diploma picture 'Dornoch' shows a strong Dutch influence 'grey in colour, elaborate in gradation, solemn in sentiment'. Armstrong said that 'of all living Scotsmen, Reid perhaps most completely deserves to be called a master in the Continental sense.' He had more in common with the older French painters, notably JP Laurens, than with any of his own colleagues. Writing in the Art Journal in 1898 Caw observed 'we have become so accustomed to Sir George Reid's great power of rendering likeness and character that we are too apt to forget its value and rarity, and to ask for a more truly artistic expression is perhaps compatible with the qualities his work possesses in so uncommon degree .. the more obvious defects of style, the excess of small and over-incisive drawing in his heads, and the detachment of head from background, are of the kind that time deals kindly with'. His watercolours were most often executed in pen and monochrome washes of which 'Traquair House' (NGS) is a good example. 

Elected ARSA 1870, RSA 1877, President RSA 1891-1902, knighted 1891. 

Represented in NGS, SNPG (21), Aberdeen AG, Glasgow AG, Edinburgh City collection, Brodie Castle (NTS), Haddo House (NTS) and Manchester AG.

Professor John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895) was a Scottish Scholar and Man of Letters. He became the first Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen before moving to Edinburgh University in 1852 to become Professor of Greek there.

An earlier portrait of Professor Blackie by Sir George Reid (dateable to 1870) is in the collection of the University of Aberdeen. A further portrait is in the collection of Aberdeen Art Gallery. A three-quarter length portrait of the same sitter (dateable to 1873) is in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. This portrait is dated 1884 and is most likely that exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1884 as Prof Blackie.