Bet Low facts for kids

Bet Low (born December 28, 1924 – died December 2, 2007) was a Scottish artist. She was known for painting people and landscapes. Bet was one of the famous "Glasgow Girls" and helped start a group called the Clyde Group.

About Bet Low's Life

The Glasgow School of Art, where Bet Low studied.

Bet Low was born in Gourock, Scotland. She grew up near the Clyde Estuary. Her childhood was tough, but she saw both busy industrial areas and beautiful Scottish countryside. This mix of city and nature inspired her art.

Bet married another painter named Tom MacDonald, but they later divorced. She often visited a place called Hoy in Orkney with her family. The special light and landscapes there gave her many new ideas for her paintings.

Her Artistic Work

Bet Low studied at the Glasgow School of Art during World War II. In 1945, she continued her art studies at Hospitalfield House. There, she learned from James Cowie, who sparked her interest in books, ideas, and politics.

From 1945 to 1946, she trained to be a teacher at Jordanhill College. However, she became very interested in theater and did not finish her teaching course.

Starting the Clyde Group

After the war, Bet Low helped create the Clyde Group. This group was part of the New Scottish Group, which included writers and artists with left-wing ideas. Bet's early paintings showed people and scenes from Glasgow after the war. She often painted refugees and was influenced by a style called German Expressionism.

Bet also worked on illustrations and designed sets for plays. She created her first set design for a play called "Men Should Weep" at the Glasgow Unity Theatre.

Moving to Abstract Art

By the 1960s, Bet Low started painting in a more abstract style. This is the type of art she is most famous for today. She created a painting called "Merge and Emerge" in 1961. She explained it by saying: "I was trying to produce an effect of water moving over stones in a riverbed. In some parts, everything is hidden by the depth or movement of water and merged together, and in other parts where the water is more shallow, the stones appear beneath the surface again and emerge into sight."

Bet Low was friends with the poet George Mackay Brown. They worked together on a poster poem called Orkney, the Whale Islands in 1987.

Exhibitions and Awards

Bet Low showed her art in many places. She exhibited with The Society of Scottish Independent Artists and the Royal Glasgow Institute. She also showed her work at the New Art Club, which was started by J.D. Fergusson and Margaret Morris.

In 1956, Bet Low helped organize Glasgow's first outdoor art show. It took place on the railings of the Botanical Gardens. A newspaper called The Scotsman said it was like "The Left Bank come to the Kelvin." This outdoor exhibition was very popular and ran for five years.

In 1986, a special show of Bet Low's art was held. It was called a "retrospective" and showed many of her works. This exhibition was at the Third Eye Centre in Glasgow and the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness.

See also

• Art in modern Scotland
• Landscape painting in Scotland