Building of Tongland Dam depicts Tongland Dam on the River Dee a few miles upstream from Kirkcudbright. When the painting was executed the dam was nearing completion. The Galloway Hydro-Electric Scheme was the largest of its kind in Britain, involving a series of seven dams and linked watercourses and five power stations. 

Charles Oppenheimer RSA RSW, 1875-1961

Oppenheimer was born in Manchester in 1876 and studied at Manchester School of Art and in Italy. After serving in the Royal Artillery in the First World War he went to live and work in Kirkcudbright. A landscape painter, he preferred the rolling scenery of south-west Scotland to the more rugged Highlands. Oppenheimer was a sensitive painter of nature, quiet pastoral views, running water - he was a keen angler - and the changing seasons.