Alexander Stuart-Hill

Alexander Stuart-Hill (1889 – February 1948) was a Scottish portrait and landscape artist who lived in Paris who was engaged to Princess Louise of Battenberg before her marriage to King Gustaf VI Adolf.

Early life

Stuart-Hill was born in 1889 was born in Perth, Scotland.[1] His father, William Hill, was a fishmonger.[2]

He studied at Edinburgh College of Art, where he was awarded a scholarship that allowed him to travel around France, Italy and Spain.[1]

Career

From 1920 to 1947, Stuart-Hill regularly exhibited portraits and landscapes at the Royal Academy of Arts. He showed at the Grosvenor Gallery with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters,[3] and at the New Chenil Galleries in Chelsea.[4] In 1932, he designed a poster for Shell with Vorticist overtones which showed Mousehole, Penzance.[5][6] In 1937, the Redfern Gallery held a one-man exhibition of his portraits and views of London bridges,[7] including Battersea Bridge (1937)[8] and The Thames at Charing Cross Bridge (which famously had been painted by Claude Monet in 1899).[9] In 1943, he designed another poster for London Transport that featured bridges over the Thames.[5]

His portrait subjects included The Duchesse de Choiseuil-Praslin c. 1914,[lower-alpha 1] Lilias Livingstone Mackinnon c. 1920,[lower-alpha 2] Admiral Sir H. Goodenough King-Hall (1920), Arthur Greenhow Lupton, First Pro-Chancellor of the University of Leeds (1923), Turner Layton (1927),[3] Florence Mills (1927),[16] and the Baroness Posznanska (1945).[9]

His landscape subjects focused on his native Scotland as well as other parts of Europe, including views of Santa Margherita, Italy (c. 1927–1928) and Early Spring Sunshine in Amalfi. In Perth, he painted The Tay in Sunshine, Kinnoull Hill, and the Cottage at Burghmuir.[9][17]

Personal life
1923 wedding portrait of Lady Louise and Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf

During World War I, Stuart-Hill worked in a military hospital in Nevers where he began a relationship with fellow volunteer Lady Louise Mountbatten. She was a daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg, an admiral in the British Royal Navy who renounced his German title during the First World War and anglicised the family name to "Mountbatten" at the behest of King George V in 1917. Louise's mother was Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and she was a sister of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and of Princess Alice of Battenberg (the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh). She was also a niece of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia. Anticipating that her parents would be disappointed in the choice, Louise kept their engagement a secret for two years. Eventually, she confided in her parents, who were initially understanding, and twice invited him for visits at Kent House at East Cowes on the Isle of Wight.[18][19] Her family, referring to him as "Shakespeare" because of his odd appearance, found him "eccentric" and "affected". Lacking resources, the engaged couple agreed to postpone marriage until after the war.[20][21] But in 1918, Louise's father explained to her that Stuart-Hill was most likely homosexual, and that a marriage with him was impossible. In 1923, Louise later married Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden and upon his ascension to the Swedish throne in 1950, she became Queen consort of Sweden.[18]

According to his obituary in The Times, besides painting, "there was nothing "Stuart" could not do with his hands, from building chimneys and repairing roofs to the most delicate work in petit-point embroidery."[22] His studio, located at 41 Glebe Place in Chelsea, was a "lively social meeting place in the years before the Second World War."[1] Attendees included members of the Bright young things, including Evelyn Waugh, Florence Mills, Alice Delysia, Turner Layton, and Clarence "Tandy" Johnstone.[16]

Stuart-Hill died in February 1948.[22]

Legacy

Today, his works are in the collections of the Perth Museum and Art Gallery, the Imperial War Museum, Dundee Art Galleries and Museums Collection, the Ulster Museum, The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery (at the University of Leeds), and the Perth and Kinross Council.[9]

References
Notes
  1. An American, The Duchesse de Choiseuil-Praslin, was the former Mary Elizabeth "Nellie" Forbes (1854–1932), sister of William and H. De Courcy Forbes and wife of Gaston, 6th Duc de Choiseuil-Praslin (son of Charles de Choiseul-Praslin and Françoise, duchesse de Praslin).[10] Her eldest son Gaston, 7th Duc de Choiseuil-Praslin,[11] married the former Lucie Grundy (née Tate) Paine, a widow of Boston investment banker Charles Hamilton Paine, a partner in Paine Webber, in 1910.[12][13]
  2. Lilias Livingstone Mackinnon (d. 1974) was a concert pianist,[14] and a sister of zoologist Doris Mackinnon.[15]
Sources
  1. "Alexander Stuart-Hill". www.mackintosh-architecture.gla.ac.uk. Mackintosh Architecture. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  2. Hall, Coryne (2014). Princesses on the Wards: Royal Women in Nursing through Wars and Revolutions. The History Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-7509-5774-8. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  3. Egan, Bill (2004). Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz Queen. Scarecrow Press. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-8108-5007-1. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  4. The Times, 22 February 1919, p. 8; 25 January 1927, p. 10.
  5. National Motor Museum: Shell Advertising Art Collection, 360; London Transport Museum, 1983/4/5543.
  6. "Alexander Stuart-Hill (1889-1948) , YOU CAN BE SURE OF SHELL, MOUSEHOLE PENZANCE". www.christies.com. Christie's. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  7. The Times, 7 October 1937, p. 12
  8. "Alexander Stuart-Hill". www.teesvalleyarts.org.uk. Tees Valley Arts. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  9. "Stuart-Hill, Alexander, 1889–1948". www.artuk.org. Art UK. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  10. Depew, Chauncey M. (2013). Titled Americans, 1890: A list of American ladies who have married foreigners of rank. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 196. ISBN 978-1-78366-005-6. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  11. Allen, Cameron (2013). The History of the American Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Paris (1815-1980). iUniverse. p. 514. ISBN 978-1-4759-3782-4. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  12. Times, Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph To the New York (5 February 1911). "LATEST SCANDAL IN FRENCH SOCIETY; Comte Claude de Choiseul-Praslin Accused of Swindling by Means of False "Old Masters."". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  13. "DUCHESS DROPS SUIT AGAINST D'AULBYS; Former Mrs. Paine Abandons Charge of Swindling, but French Court Proceeds with Case. ADJOURNED TILL JANUARY 2 D'Aulby's Lawyers Say He Has Promised to Destroy Mme. de Cholseul-Praslin's Letters". The New York Times. 25 December 1910. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  14. "Aberdeen Pianist: U.S. Concert Tours". Aberdeen Weekly Journal. 25 March 1943. p. 2. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  15. "Dr Doris Mackinnon". Aberdeen Press and Journal. 26 December 1922. p. 4. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  16. Barney, Elvira (19 March 2012). "Another Party in Glebe Place". Cocktails With Elvira. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  17. Country Life. Country Life, Limited. 1993. p. 82. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  18. Vickers, Hugo (2003). Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece. Macmillan. pp. 127–130. ISBN 978-0-312-30239-9. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  19. Timms, Elizabeth Jane (21 April 2018). "St Mildred's: Queen Victoria's church on the Isle of Wight". Royal Central. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  20. "Alexander Stuart Hill". The Victoria Daily Times. 15 November 1918. p. 16. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  21. "Louise Mountbatten". Edmonton Journal. 6 December 1918. p. 17. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  22. The Times, 24 February 1948, p. 7
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