The generation known as the Glasgow Boys and Girls includes most radical Scottish painters of the late nineteenth century. Leading lights were Joseph Crawhall (1861-1913), James Guthrie (1859-1930), Edward Walton ((1860-1922), Flora Macdonald Reid (1860-1938?), James Paterson (1854-1932) and John Lavery (1856-1941).

The group coalesced in the early 1880s in shared artistic rebellion against the high Victorian enthusiasm for theatrical Highland scenes and sentimental ‘story-pictures’. Instead, they depicted the reality of contemporary rural life taking their cue from the documentary French painter, Jules Bastien-Lepage, while also adopting his distinctive technique of square brushstrokes. The graphic geometry of Japanese prints was also a potent influence.

 A series of exhibitions in the 1890s brought the “Boys” national and international fame establishing their avant-garde credentials.  By the late 1880s a number of the Boys  moved to London to pursue successful careers as portrait painters.