Summertime in the Highlands

William Small was a Scottish landscape painter and an illustrator. Born in Edinburgh, he trained at the School of Design under Robert Scott Lauder, while working as a wood-engraver's apprentice. He won the Stuart prize in 1865, and soon found employment as an illustrator. He moved to London in 1869 and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in the same year. His earlier paintings were mainly concerned with rustic themes while his later paintings recorded scenes of social deprivation of the poor, in a manner similar to the social realist style of Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914).