Eye of the Storm is a poignant film charting the final years in the life of renowned Scottish landscape artist James Morrison. It is directed by Montrose-based filmmaker Anthony Baxter.
It will be shown by the BBC for the first time on March 30 via the BBC Scotland channel, followed by another screening on BBC Two on April 4. Eye of the Storm will also be available to watch on iPlayer for 30 days.
The documentary had its global preview at Glasgow Film Festival in March 2021. An extended version is available via streaming services.
It follows James, who is struggling with the loss of his sight. He attempts one final painting before his next exhibition.
Anthony says these screenings will allow James’s work to reach more people: “And give this wider audience, an opportunity to enjoy his warm humour and passion for the landscape, along with his mastery of light and tone.”
Who is James Morrison?
Born in Glasgow in 1932, James Morrison – known to friends as Jim – studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1950–1954.
His early “landscapes” were of the city’s old tenements, many of which would go on to be demolished.
After a brief spell in the Aberdeenshire coastal village of Catterline in the early 1960s, he settled with his family in Montrose in 1965, where he remained for the rest of his life.
James could regularly be seen working outside in all weathers, capturing the ever-changing countryside, skies and coastline with his paintbrushes.
As he neared the end of his life, he was no longer able to work outdoors, but continued to paint at his Montrose studio into his late 80s.
He joined the staff of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee in 1965, retiring in 1987 so that he could paint full-time.
An academician of the Royal Scottish Academy and a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, his work was exclusively available through The Scottish Gallery for 30 years.
His most recent exhibition, From Angus to the Arctic in January 2020, was his 25th solo show with the gallery. This exhibition features in Eye of the Storm.
A landscape artist through-and-through, James’s main subjects were of the Angus countryside where he lived, and also Assynt, north of Ullapool, on Scotland’s west coast.
As well as Scotland, Morrison had extended painting trips to Africa, France, and Canada, including three trips to the Arctic in the 1990s.
The Royal family own several Morrison paintings, as does author J.K. Rowling.
James passed away in August 2020, aged 88. In a personal tribute, director of The Scottish Gallery Guy Peploe says of James: “His work has been collected all over the world.
“Today, new collectors discover his work and inevitably in the last few years we have begun to address his extraordinary career, looking at the Catterline years, the Arctic work, Glasgow and a part retrospective in Decades in 2017.
“Jim will leave a huge hole in the Scottish art world and will be personally missed by many, not least his dear friends at The Scottish Gallery.”
The Scottish Gallery intends to host a small tribute to James Morrison in September in advance of his memorial exhibition in June 2022.
Click here to see The Scottish Gallery’s virtual room of James’s work.
Who is Anthony Baxter?
Filmmaker Anthony Baxter, 51, has lived in Montrose for 16 years.
He filmed James Morrison for two years as he returned to painting following ill health. Sadly, Anthony never had the chance to share the finished version of Eye of the Storm with him before he passed away.
Anthony’s 2011 documentary You’ve Been Trumped was a searing account of future US President Donald Trump’s golf development at the Menie Estate in Balmedie, and the residents who fought against it.
He runs Montrose Pictures, an award-winning film and television production company. He has directed a number of documentaries including: You’ve Been Trumped Too (2016), A Dangerous Game (2014) and Flint (2020) a harrowing examination of the drinking-water public health crisis in the city of Flint, Michigan.
