He was a landscape painter who exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1904; he also exhibited works at the Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy & elsewhere.
William Bradley Lamond RBA (1857–1924) was a Scottish painter, born at Newtyle, Angus. He had no formal art training and worked for the Caledonian Railway company for many years. He initially specialised in portraits and later worked on landscapes. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1906, and exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy and Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.
William Bradley Lamond first publicly exhibited his work at Dunfermline’s Fine Art Exhibition in 1883, followed by the Dundee Fine Art Exhibition in 1884. Five years later he showed at the Royal Scottish Academy for the first time and in 1890 he became one of the founding members of the Dundee Graphic Arts Association and had work shown at Robert Scott’s gallery in the city.
In 1895 he had his most successful year yet, showing at the Glasgow Institute and the RSA and ending with an exhibition of paintings and sketches in his studio at 61 Reform Street. Although Lamond eschewed modern art, his compositions were often regarded as distinctive due to his preference for capturing particular effects rather than selecting subject matter because of its social or symbolic meaning, in contrast to other Dundee painters such as John Duncan or Stewart Carmichael.
In 1900 he showed at the Royal Academy for the first time, and in 1902 he opened his first one-man show in London, at Clifford’s Gallery in Haymarket.
Lamond returned to London in 1903 to undertake a number of commissions and later that year was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, recognised as “a painter of strength, with a true eye for colour harmonies and a special aptitude for interpreting the beauties of northern landscape and coast scenery”.
He continued to show work at the exhibitions of the RBA, RSA, Glasgow Institute and GAA, but in 1906 his health broke down and he withdrew from all of these.
By summer 1908 Lamond was back in Dundee, where he held an exhibition of his latest work in his new studio at 3 Constitution Road; the following year he moved to 27 Bank Street where he would remain for the rest of his life. In 1915 he gained a celebrity patron in the person of music hall legend Harry Lauder, who commissioned two paintings from him and visited him periodically in either Dundee or Auchmithie.
