21. Sir David Young Cameron
(1865-1945)
The Veteran

(click on image to print)
Cameron: The Veteran

The Veteran

Etching, 1891, 237 x 148 mm., Rinder 94 ii/ii. It is ironic to list Cameron as an undervalued artist because in the days before Picasso, the highest price paid at auction for an etching was for a D.Y.Cameron (more than for a Whistler or Rembrandt). Today his work is clearly undervalued, in financial terms at least. Yes, there is that Scottish dour quality in his prints and it's almost always about to rain, but the man was a real artist and his etchings do evoke place, time and mood. His metier was landscape, a bit less so cityscape, and yet this rather rare example of portraiture shows a strong ability to translate psychology into line. We know nothing factual about the subject, the title is simply The Veteran (of what?), but the etching tells us a good deal about him. A fine impression in Cameron's standard black-brown ink, on old Dutch laid paper with full margins, signed in pencil.