Andrew Donaldson - Artist

Andrew Donaldson was born at Comber near Belfast and came to Glasgow in his youth and joined his father's trade as a spinner. A significant injury damaged his health and he turned to art as a career, starting to sketch around 20.  

Early works are views of Glasgow as he documented the changing face of the city during the period of expansion which preceded Glasgow's boom period, the Victorian era. These images depict some of the oldest parts of the city. In the late 1820s and early 1830s he travelled extensively in the Highlands, North Wales and Northern Ireland. 

He worked entirely in watercolour and was known as a talented sketcher. His early work is tightly topographical but his later landscape style became freer with fresh washes.