The watercolours of Joseph Crawhall epitomise all that was most daring and accomplished about the group known as the Glasgow Boys and Girls. His dazzling portraits of animals and birds were eagerly sought by the richest and most discerning Scottish collectors of the day, notably Sir William Burrell, who owned 140 of the approximately 400 extant works of the artist. Crawhall was simultaneously fascinated and repelled by the spectacle of the Spanish bullfight. Delighting in the movement of light and colour, he depicts the dark mass of the bull dominating the centre of the composition, with the horse, the victim, struggling for survival.

Joseph Crawhall RSW, 1861-1913

Born in Morpeth, Northumberland, Crawhall was largely self-taught, apart from spending two months at the Atelier Aimé Morot in Paris in 1882. He relied on observation, memory and learning from the simplicity of Japanese art, then much in vogue. After meeting E.A. Walton in 1879 he became closely associated with the Glasgow Boys. Crawhall, Walton and James Guthrie developed a friendship and spent several seasons painting together in Scotland and Lincolnshire, and abroad. Crawhall visited Morocco in 1884, returning there often over the next nine years, and in Tangier he became a close friend of John Lavery.