John Kelso Hunter (15 December 1802 – 3 February 1873) was a self-taught Scottish portrait painter and author of two books.
 Self Portrait, 1858 |
Hunter was the second son of one Hunter of Chirnside who in 1799 moved the family from Chirnside, a village in Berwickshire, to take employment as a gardener at an Ayrshire estate owned by Colonel William Kelso. Hunter was born at Dunkeith, Ayrshire, and was a relation to the McCallums of Troon. His father died in about 1810. He was for some time employed as a herd-boy on the estate, and was then apprenticed to a shoemaker; when his indentures expired, he settled at Kilmarnock. On 9 August 1822 he married Agnes Willock in Low Church, Kilmarnock. He taught himself portrait painting while continuing his work as a shoemaker. The couple had 13 children over a period of 22 years.
Hunter moved to Glasgow, where he was employed alternately as an artist and a shoemaker. In 1847 he exhibited a portrait of himself as a cobbler at the Royal Academy, London; it was the only piece of his to be displayed there. He exhibited his painting 'A Man's Head' at the Annual Exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1849. After 9 years, he gave the Academy his formal self-portrait piece. He contributed three other works, ‘A Roadside Inn, Ayr’ in 1868 and ‘From Above Port-Glasgow’ and 'Self Portrait as a Shoemaker' in 1872. (Displayed Below)
 Self Portrait as a Shoemaker, 1847 |
During 1861 and 1873, Hunter exhibited seven paintings at the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts:
In 1868 he published his first book, The Retrospect of an
Artist's Life, subtitled Memorials of West-Country Men and
Manners of the Past Half Century. Acquainted in his youth with
many who had known Robert Burns, and with some of the heroes of the
poet's verse, Hunter embodied these recollections in a volume
entitled Life Studies of Character, printed in 1870. The
book throws much light on the works of Burns, especially on the
original of Dr. Hornbook, and faithfully describes the society into
which the poet was born. Valuable notices are supplied of the song
writer, Tannahill, and other minor poets of the north.
According to Hunter's autobiography, his son John Kelso Jr was employed as a teacher and died at 33, Hunter wrote 'he fell into bad health'. He also wrote that his son's wife died shortly after him and his three sons were left to their maternal grandmother.
Hunter's daughter, Anne, married John Laidley Duncan in Scotland, they moved to Australia not long after their marriage in 1854. In 1859, Duncan formed an Iron Foundry with Mark Straughair in Beechworth, Australia. Anne and John had 12 children and 17 grandchildren together.
Harry Johnson, Hunter's youngest child, was also an artist, a landscape painter in oil and watercolour. It lists in The Dictionary of Scottish Art & Architecture, Harry Hunter exhibited 'A View of Cathcart Church' at the Royal Scottish Academy and Glasgow Institute of Fine Art.
Hunter died at Pollokshields, Glasgow.
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