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PAINTING of CARDING MACHINE by  ALBERTO MORROCCO  RSA OBE

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This framed print was gifted to the KEITH and DISTRICT HERITAGE GROUP in October 2007 by Alan Anderson CText, ATI

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PICTURE HISTORY

This print is from an oil painting by Albert Morrocco of a carding machine built in 1948 by William Tatham Ltd of         
Rochdale Lancashire for Robert Laidlaw and Sons Ltd, Seafield Mills, Keith. The Laidlaw family owned the mill for    
     over sixty years, and this work was commissioned by Mr Roy Laidlaw c. 1949. The figure standing in front of the              
condenser was Andrew Porteus, the Carding Foreman.                                                                                                    

The painter Albert Morrocco, was born in Aberdeen in1917, the son of an Italian immigrant shopkeeper. He attended
Sunnybank School before studying at Grays School of Art and touring France and Italy.                                               

  During the 1939 - 1945 war, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. On his return to civilian life he taught              
   art at evening classes until appointed Head of the School of Drawing and Painting, Duncan of Jordanstone College,     
   Dundee. He remained there until his retirement in 1982 by which time he was recognised as one of the finest portrait   
    painters of his generation. In 1962 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy. In 1987 he was awarded an  
    Honorary Doctrate of Stirling University and he was made an O.B.E. in 1993. He died of bone cancer in Ninewells          
      Hospital, Dundee on 10th March 1998 at the age of 80.                                                                                                          

Dr. Morrocco's association with Keith arose from the fact that he married a Keith girl, Vera Mercer, who was also an
 artist. By coincidence, her father was the Carding Foreman in the other Keith mill belonging to G & G Kynoch Ltd.     

For over forty years, the original painting hung in the Mill Manager's office at Seafield Mills. In 1994 it became the    
property of Alan Anderson who had worked at the mill from 1959 until 1974, latterly as Production Director.               

The print was made by Colin Brown, mms almac, Isla Bank Mills , Keith in 2007.

It was framed by Still Life, High Street, Aberlour

Gifted to The Keith and District Heritage Group  by  Alan J. H. Anderson, CText, ATI  October 2007

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