NAIRN, JAMES McLACHLAN (1859-1904), born and educated in Glasgow, received his training at the Glasgow School of Art and later on the Continent. He was in view of success, and had been elected a member of the Glasgow Art Society, when ill-health compelled him to seek a better climate, and he came to New Zealand in the Forfarshire (1890). Nairn exhibited his pictures in Dunedin and gave lectures on art, and then moved to Wellington, where he was appointed instructor in the School of Design (afterwards the Technical College). He was an unequalled draughtsman, clever in both landscape and portraiture. Some of his landscapes (notably A Summer Idyll) were acquired by the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts (of which he was a vice-president); and his portraits of judges (Richmond, F. R. Chapman and Prendergast) are in the Supreme Court. He was an uncompromising critic and the first teacher in New Zealand to conduct classes for the study of the nude figure. Nairn married Miss Smith (Greytown). He died on 22 Feb 1904.

N.Z. Times, 23, 24 Feb 1904; Evening Post, 22 Feb; M. E. R. Tripe, in Art in New Zealand, Dec 1928 (p).

Reference: Volume 2, page 60

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