Attributed to William Johnstone, no coa, private collection, medium: oil, measurements: 48"WX30"H no frame, mint condition Biography: William Johnstone OBE was a Scottish artist and writer, and Principal of Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1947 to 1960. Johnstone's work was directly related to modernism, moving away from direct representation to abstraction. Central to his work was the materiality of paint and its formal attributes.[9] This was heavily influenced by the work of the Abstract Expressionists in America. Also, key was the notion of the unconscious, as inspired by Surrealism.[10]Johnstone's work also took on a very personal relationship with the landscape of his native land of the Scottish borders. In this landscape he saw the tension between humanity and nature. Despite his abstract tendencies, Johnstone's work still retained a physical sense of the visual world. This is demonstrated in his most celebrated painting A Point in Time 1929–1937 now owned by the National Galleries of Scotland.