painters Tubes magazines #16 | Page 9

“ Rob Fairley is an exceptional painter and human being. I first came across his paintings in 2016
and since then have included him as a special guest artist in Tubes magazine (issue 14).
However, Rob’s landscape paintings of mountains personally, I find astonshing. And therefore I
had to include his work as the front and back page of this Spåecial Landscape 2020 Tubes special
feature. The paintings speak for themselves of course, but to give our readers a very good idea of
the artists ‘art-life’ here is a fantastic review written for the Alpine Journal, by Robin N. Cambell.”
Denis Taylor. Artist and Editor painters TUBES magazine
“
There are five distinct strands in the rope of Fairley’s life: artist, crofter, educator mountaineer and
writer. He was a pupil at George Watson’s School in Edinburgh in the 1960s where his interest
in mountains was fostered by Archie Hendry, who taught languages there and who also influenced
Robin Smith and Mal Duff, Fairley’s exact contemporary. Fairley’s early mastery of mountain
landscape drawing is evident in the Eiger drawing in ‘John Harlin’, painted while still a schoolboy.
After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1975, he moved to Mallaig briefly before becoming
the sole human inhabitant of the tidal island Shona Beag in Loch Moidart until 1979 when he moved
to a croft at Alisary on Loch Ailort. During this period, besides regular landscape work, Fairley
practiced a form of ephemeral shamanistic ‘land art’, occasionally recorded by drawing or by pinhole
photography from cameras constructed from animal carcases, stone enclosures, etc.
To some degree ‘A line made by Red Deer’, and ‘a line of fox bones’ reflect these early interests.
At the same time, he did not neglect mountaineering, climbing regularly at a high level in winter and
summer, usually solo except for the company of his intrepid collie Jinny, who dodged the cruxes
but never failed to greet him at the top of the routes. The two huge pencil drawings of Ben Nevis
‘Building in a landscape’ and ‘Figure in a landscape’ date from late in this period. According to
Fairley, they were done in his croft/studio by the light of oil and Tilley lamps, working more or less
naked because of the extreme heat they generated. These are extraordinary works, perhaps the
most impressive mountain drawings in pencil since Edward Lear’s Lake District drawings in 1836.
In the mid 1980s, Fairley resumed acquaintance with Mal Duff. Duff had taken two poets, Andrew
Greig and Kathleen Jamie, to the Mustagh Tower and had the idea of taking an artist along to
illustrate his expeditions. In Fairley, he found an artist who could climb as well. As well as going to
the Himalaya with Duff, he was also recruited by Henry Todd, and in his own words worked as a
‘climbing mercenary’ there for many years, during which he visited Annapurna, Annapurna III,
Kusum Kanguru, Ama Dablam and Tawche besides many trekking peaks. Numerous wonderful
watercolour landscapes from this period survive – Fairley is notorious for destroying his own
work and are represented here by ‘Everest from Rongbuk Glacier’, ‘Andy Perkins & Andy Cave at
Annapurna III Advanced Base Camp’, ‘Annapurna Camp One’, and ‘Breakfast with Henry’.
Fairley became fascinated by Nepal’s culture and people, and grasped every opportunity to record
this in his sketchbooks and in watercolour work finished at home. His sketching method used a tube
of watercolour, whatever sort of water was to hand, his unused hand as palette, and many such
sketches were executed in a very few minutes. While all of this portrait work is remarkable, it is
perhaps his pure watercolour portraits which deserve most respect. These are in the tradition of the
likes of George Richmond or James Guthrie, but the technique is purer.
This work is represented by ‘Tibetan Trader’, ‘Tsering’ and ‘Quin ego hoc rogem’. (note: not shown
in this publication) The latter is in egg tempera colours, not watercolour, but this medium has the
same qualities of flatness and transparency, and will last 1000 years or more. I am delighted to have
had this opportunity to present Fairley’s work in the Alpine Journal, and I commend him to readers
as a mountaineer-artist of the first quality, to my mind to be ranked alongside such distinguished
predecessors as Edward Compton and Ernst Platz, but undoubtedly with greater range.
©2016 written by Dr Robin N. Campbell
Robin’s full article is entitled : “Renaissance Man of Moidart”
(The Alpine Journal 2016, Vol 120. pp 416 / 417.)