Art Sunday; Sir David Young Cameron

David Young Cameron

Sir David Young Cameron (born June 28, 1865 in Glasgow, Scotland, died in Perth, Scotland on September 16, 1945) is a Scottish painter and etcher.He was trained at the Glasgow and Edinburgh Schools of Art in the 1880s.

DY Cameron was a highly influential artist who was best known for his dramatic oil paintings of Scottish landscapes, but also for being one of the most important etchers of his time. He had a lifelong interest in architecture and was widely travelled. He visited Italy, Belgium and France where he produced paintings and etchings of townscapes, cathedrals and churches.

Above; Sir David Young Cameron,
Ben Levi; Late Autumn,
Oil on canvas.

He tended to use only a limited palette of color and worked in oil. His work featured a rich variety of tones created by contrasting the light and shadow of his subject matter.


He painted from life but edited out unwanted detail that he thought detracted from the essence of the painting.


His work has clear lines simple shapes and powerful compositions. His skill as a draftsman is evident from the quality of his etchings which are dramatic but crisp and clearly defined.


He mad several paintings and etchings of Ben Levi all of which showed his subject under different light conditions which captured perfectly the changing seasons of a Scottish landscape.