{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Sir James Lewis Caw''' LLD HRSA (25 September 1864 – 5 December 1950)<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|id=75568|first=Jill C.|last=Mackenzie|title=Caw, Sir James Lewis}}</ref> was a Scottish art historian, critic and gallery director. He argued for the existence of an independent and free-standing "Scottish school of painting" arising in the second half of the 19th century.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jordanna Bailkin|title=The Culture of Property: The Crisis of Liberalism in Modern Britain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O8c9Nd7MVsAC&pg=PA86|date=15 July 2004|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-03550-5|page=86}}</ref>
==Life== thumb|The grave of Sir James Caw, Newington Cemetery, Edinburgh Caw was born in Ayr, the son of James Caw, a draper, and his wife Eliza Murray Greenfield. After study at Ayr Academy, he became an apprentice engineer at the West of Scotland Technical College in Ayr. He then worked from 1887 as an engineering draughtsman, initially in Glasgow.<ref name="ODNB"/>
Caw was introduced to the Scottish art world in the early 1880s by James Guthrie, and made significant friendships, in particular with some of the Glasgow Boys. He began work at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 1885; in 1907 he became the initial director of the National Galleries of Scotland.<ref name="ODNB"/> He was a member of the Scottish Arts Club.<ref>Firth, Jack (1974), ''The Visual Arts'', in ''The Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh, 1874 - 1974'', The Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh, pp. 34 & 35.</ref>
In 1931 Caw was knighted. He died at his home in Lasswade on 5 December 1950.<ref name="ODNB"/> He is buried in Newington Cemetery in south Edinburgh.
==Works== Caw is considered the major historian of Scottish art of the first half of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite book|author=Dr John Morrison|title=Painting Labour in Scotland and Europe, 1850-1900|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NhqrBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA138|date=28 May 2014|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-1-4724-1519-6|page=138}}</ref> He wrote an ambitious survey entitled ''Scottish Painting Past and Present 1620 - 1908'' (1908).<ref>Scott, Helen E. (2019), ''Mary Cameron: Life in Paint'', Sansom & Company, p. 9</ref> Works on individual artists include:
*''Portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn'' (1909)<ref>[https://archive.org/details/cu31924008748182 archive.org ''Portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn'']</ref> *''William McTaggart, R.S.A., V.P.R.S.W.: A Biography and an Appreciation'' (1917)<ref>{{cite book|author=Sir James Lewis Caw|title=William McTaggart, R.S.A., V.P.R.S.W.: A Biography and an Appreciation|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924008695888|year=1917|publisher=J. Maclehose}}</ref> *''Sir James Guthrie, a Biography'' (1932)<ref>{{cite book|title=Sir James Guthrie, a Biography by Sir James L. Caw, Guthrie as Interpreter, by Frank Rinder. Personal Memories, by John Warrack|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mh7itgAACAAJ|year=1932|publisher=Macmillan}}</ref>
Himself a watercolour painter, Caw exhibited from 1887 to 1922.<ref name="ODNB"/>
==Family== Caw married in 1909 Anne Mary McTaggart, daughter of William McTaggart. They had no children.<ref name="ODNB"/>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Caw, James Lewis}} Category:1864 births Category:1950 deaths Category:People from Ayr Category:People educated at Ayr Academy Category:Scottish art historians Category:Scottish art critics Category:British arts administrators Category:Scottish painters Category:Scottish male painters Category:Scottish knights