John Kelso Hunter was a self-taught Scottish portrait painter and author of two books.
Life
Hunter was one of three children born to William Hunter and Isbald Logan; he had an elder brother George and a younger sister Susannah. John was born at Dankeith, Ayrshire. His father was a gardener on the estate owned by Lieutenant-Colonel William Kelso, he died when Hunter was 8 years old. As a young child, Hunter was employed as a herd-boy on the Kelso's estate, and he was then apprenticed to a shoemaker. When his indentures expired, he settled at Kilmarnock. He taught himself portrait painting while continuing his work as a shoemaker. Hunter moved to Glasgow, where he was employed alternately as an artist and a shoemaker. In 1847 he exhibited a portrait of himself as a cobbler at the Royal Academy, London; it was the only piece of his to be displayed there. He exhibited his painting "A Man's Head" at the Annual Exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1849. After 9 years, he gave the Academy his formal self-portrait piece. He contributed three other works, "A Roadside Inn, Ayr" in 1868 and "From Above Port-Glasgow" and "Self Portrait as a Shoemaker" in 1872. During 1861 and 1873, Hunter exhibited seven paintings at the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts:
1861 - 'Self Portrait'
1862 - 'Dreghorn, Ayrshire'
1871 - 'The Reader'
1872 - 'Loch Lomond, from Mount Misery' and 'Gourock - looking up the Clyde'
1873 - 'Self Portrait as a Shoemaker' and 'From Above Port-Glasgow'
In 1868 he published his first book, The Retrospect of an Artist's Life, subtitled Memorials of West-Country Men and Manners of the Past Half Century. Acquainted in his youth with many who had known Robert Burns, and with some of the heroes of the poet's verse, Hunter embodied these recollections in a volume entitled Life Studies of Character, printed in 1870. The book throws much light on the works of Burns, especially on the original of Dr. Hornbook, and faithfully describes the society into which the poet was born. Valuable notices are supplied of the song writer, Tannahill, and other minor poets of the north. Hunter died on 3 February 1873 at Pollokshields, Glasgow. He is buried in Southern Necropolis, Glasgow.
Family
On 9 August 1822 Hunter married Agnes Willock in Low Church, Kilmarnock. The couple had 13 children over a period of 22 years. John Kelso did remarry after Agnes died in 1861. On 1 September 1862, John Kelso married Elizabeth Miller Bain in Tradeston, Glasgow. Children with Agnes Willock:
William Hunter - Birth: 26 January 1823 Death: Unknown
Isabella Hunter - Birth: 14 April 1824 Death: 29 December 1836
John Kelso Hunter - Birth: 4 June 1826 Death: 2 March 1858
Helen Hunter - Birth: 29 December 1827 Death: Unknown
George Hunter - Birth: 9 June 1828 Death: 12 May 1838
Hunter's son John Kelso Jr was employed as a teacher and died at 33, Hunter wrote 'he fell into bad health'. He also wrote that his son's wife died shortly after him and his three sons were left to their maternal grandmother. Hunter's daughter, Anne, married John Laidley Duncan in Scotland, they moved to Australia not long after their marriage in 1854. In 1859, Duncan formed an Iron Foundry with Mark Straughair in Beechworth, Australia. Anne and John had 12 children and 17 grandchildren together. Harry Johnson, Hunter's youngest child, was also an artist, a landscape painter in oil and watercolour. Harry Hunter exhibited A View of Cathcart Church at the Royal Scottish Academy and Glasgow Institute of Fine Art.
