James Munro a life
Jim Munro was a feature of the Scottish art and music scene for 40 years.
Early Days
James (Jim) Munro was born in 1925, as part of a family of five children, in the small fishing town of Fisherrow. A community normally associated with Musselburgh on the outskirts of Edinburgh, but one that still retains a special character of it’s own. Once hosting a major Roman township and it’s bridging points over the river Esk conveyed many armies throughout Scotland’s turbulent history. Also established as an ancient centre for golf and horse racing. It had a major engineering centre with Bruntons Wire Works where his father and brother George worked. His father was also the town’s bandmaster Therefore music and metal were an integral part of family life. Further influenced by his brother Alex who studied sculpture, under Alexander Carrick, at Edinburgh College of Art with Hew Lorimer and Tom Whalen in the 1930’s. Alex introduced Jim to jazz and they formed a series of ‘family music groups’ between the 1940’s and 1980’s.
Music a Driving Force
Liberation from military service and embarking on a career as an artist must have been exciting and sensational in the early 50’s. However Jim would recall that the formality of training and creative vision at Art School was still anchored retrospectively to the beliefs of an earlier generation. And Scotland was slow to embrace the explosion of central European innovation within the arts. Never the less the establishment of the Edinburgh Festival in 1947 was a spark of genius and a vehicle which heralded a major creative shift in Scotland; promoting cultural exchange and gradually helping to build self confidence as a nation.
Let the Music Play
He continued his passion for playing live music and had a residency, as a keyboard and vibraphone player, in bands throughout the 1960’s, 70’s and 1980’s and it was in this environment, two or three evenings a week he gathered ideas and translated one form of creativity to inspire another. Jazz Lab. was his experimental group and the evening work was mainly in a dance band. Both profound as creative triggers in the development of his visual art. Shadows cast on stage merging image of performer with musical instrument, sketches created in the band-room and the cabaret characters provided a rich menu of sources which he immortalised in two and three dimensions.
20th Century Man
A three metre high strident figure in reinforced concrete may have been autobiographical statement. Similarly, his largest work, Rhythm Section meticulously was modelled in plaster then exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy. Only photos of these pieces survive and handsome bronze maquettes. Arguably his most timeless and enduring sculpture is Quartet, made in stainless steel and completed in 1980. Its central pillar surmounted by a polished sphere is reminiscent of a vandagraph generator capturing some creative electricity from the stratosphere. Although he created a ‘sculptural signature’ with the ‘stainless steel work’ Jim never tired of experimenting and never entirely rejected the traditions of creating drawn or modelled portraits. And although being short listed for major international commissions it’s regrettable that none of his highly appropriate and durable stainless and bronze works were never realised as public artworks. Had he lived into the 1990’s this surely would have been achieved. His fate and career had a double edge.
Military Service
Enrols at ECA
After an education at Musselburgh Grammar School he enlisted in the army and served with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Scots in Egypt, Palestine and Malta until 1947. In that year he returned home to begin a five year course of study at Edinburgh College of Art. During his studies he continued to be involved as a part-time musician. ​His formative years and creative aptitude were influenced by his family encouragement and connections with the Brunton Wire Mills and Buchans Potteries. Significantly his brother Alex was first to study at Edinburgh College of Art and the scholarship which enabled him to travel to Greece in 1936. This influenced and informed Jim’s understanding of the role of art in an international context. Particularly the great Scottish tradition of architectural sculpture. Later to be given commercial application and experience by sharing a studio with Alex; within an old railwayman’s cottage Harbour Road.
Early examples of Jim’s College work show a great sensitivity of draftsmanship, with delicate conté and charcoal; the portraits of his mother and father reveal a tenderness and economy of line which shows a striking skill of critical observation. And complimented by the small sketch of the cherub, lying over the outline of a hand, which could sit well in any collection of renaissance drawings. This traditional approach is juxtaposed poignantly against the purposeful series of energetic ink brush drawings which still survive. Giving a glimpse of what was to come with dynamic bold rendering of outline form and chiaroscuro. Some of the early sculpture presents both the significant crafting skills in modelling and stone carving. Very much in the style taught by Eric Shilsky, head of the Sculpture Department, who promoted the work of Maillol and Despiau as the epitome of creative excellence. Driving to France and Italy with student friends both revealed the carnage of WWII and gave a first hand account of the many cultural treasures which survived.
Jazz Music
Sculpture Rediscovered
Jazz music and films emanating from U.S.A., post WWII, formed a major catalyst and ‘exotic’ inspiration for many. Jim was already playing piano and he and his contemporaries couldn’t get enough ‘American music’; whether Art Tatum, John Coltrane, Woody Herman’s Big Band or Teddy Wilson. Lionel Hampton and his energy on vibraphone was the primary reason for him wanting to extend his expression from keyboard playing to vibraphone. The Modern Jazz Quartet and Gary Burton also inspired him. Scottish music however, as he perceived it, never offered him the same stimulus.
The space and his recently acquired welding skills at Jewel and Esk College opened a floodgate of energy and disciplined determination. Some of the earliest welded pieces celebrated the juxtapostion of the found object and brought human form together with industrial machine elements and off cut. The influences quickly infused ancient fertility, totemic icons and contemporary symbols interpreted by the technical processes he adopted. The early pieces: assemblies of iron to form John the Baptist, Guitar and Simian Fist give an insight of what was to follow.
Exploring Outdoors
Ultimate Visions
The landscape painting also continued and provided another launch pad for translating and simplifying geographic form into bright coloured symbol paintings then into bronze sculpture groups. One example being the ‘Waterheads Series’ which started in 1971 with an outdoor painting near Peebles. He continued to revisit this composition with striking painting is elementary colour, in the late 1970’s and then realised as a bronze tableau in 1982. However the piece entitled Chrome Connection was possibly his first engagement with a genre of work which was ‘deconstructive’ in its simplicity and offered the crafting quality and finish which he continually sought within his work. And the ‘work ethic’ was of huge importance. Almost taking it to mythical proportions when polishing 50mm thick stainless steel! Sculptors such as David Smith, Brancusi and the constructivists all fed into his vision of the gradual metamorphosis of Sculpture, Fertility and Music. His employment at Moray House Teacher Training College changed his circle of creative contacts and both his sons, Kenneth and Gordon, developing as artists gave renewed vigour to sharing his skills and often working in collaboration. His membership of the Society of Scottish Artists and his success in winning awards at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Glasgow Institute reinforced his prominent role within the Scottish Art scene.
Bronze now became a viable option as his eldest son Kenneth and colleague Maurice Maguire set up a Fine Art Bronze Foundry. The bronze composition ‘Pick up Trio’ is an iconic work of the period. A large version, three metres in height, was displayed at several outdoor exhibitions including the Scottish Sculpture Open at Kildrummy Castle in Aberdeenshire. Other significant work of this period is 20th century Idol, a two metre high form with carved wood, bronze head and cloud-form. This ‘cloud’ can be followed through a range of his work and may be attributed to the uncertainty of future, the nebulas process of evolving creativity. 20th century head followed with a powerful, simplified head with Mohican hair form, swathed in rusted chains and mounted on a rugged vertical plinth of timber.
The Sky is Clearing
His lecturing at Moray House concluded early with a significant ‘retiral package’ which actually gave him ten years to explore his own creative passions in music and art. However the cancer that ultimately took his life appeared first in the mid 1980’s and was suppressed with radiation treatment; enabling him to continue with creativity in many forms. However the condition returned and despite his courage and invasive chemotherapy treatment he died, in January 1990, aged 64. The creative legacy which remains has promoted the creation of this site with the intention to place more of his artworks in public spaces for future generations to enjoy. And possibly to ponder on how one man created work which celebrated the ‘point where the ear and the eye meet’.