Sir Herbert James Gunn RA RP (30 June 1893– 30 December 1964) was a Scottish landscape and portrait painter.
Gunn began as a landscape painter and traveled widely, exhibiting Paintings of Rome etc at the Fine Art Society in 1929.[7] During the 1920s, he increasingly concentrated on portrait painting and after 1929 he devoted himself exclusively to portraits.[8] In November 1939, Gunn offered his services to the War Artists’ Advisory Committee and subsequently received three portrait commissions from them.[9]
During WWII he lived with his family in Carsethorn, a seaside village on the Solway in Kirkcudbrightshire.[10]
Gunn’s paintings are on show in a number of galleries and his 1953 portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is in the Royal Collection. His painting of the British royal family, Conversation Piece at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, was commissioned by the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery in 1950.[11] He also painted notable portraits of King George V, Agnes Catherine Maitland (now in Somerville College‘s dining hall), and also of Harold Macmillan, in his role as Chancellor of Oxford University.[3] He was elected President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1953, a post he held until his death. He was elected an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1953 and a full academician in 1961.[12] Gunn was knighted for services to painting in 1963.[13][14] An 80-page catalogue of his work which were exhibited at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from December 1994 to February 1995, was published by the National Galleries of Scotland in 1994.[15]
