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Two years senior to his great friend William McTaggart, Chalmers was recognized in his lifetime as one of Scotland’s
greatest painters. They met as students of Robert Scott-Lorimer at The Trustees Academy in Edinburgh where they
were schooled well in drawing from the antique and life classes as well as painting. Both would move away from genre
and portrait towards ‘pure’ landscape but were temperamentally very different. Chalmers led an irregular life, rising
late and was far from prolific. There is a story of how McTaggart and another friend visited Chalmers on the eve of
submission day for the RSA to assist; the friend sat on Chalmers while McTaggart ‘finished’ the picture. Chalmers’ life
was cut short when he died from injuries sustained from an assault in Charlotte Square aged only forty-five.
Chalmers merits a whole chapter in Caw’s Scottish Painting Past and Present and George Pinnington’s biography
was published in 1896, by T & R Annan. His best work is characterized by a rich chiaroscuro, warm colour and free
handling of the paint and Sheep in the Snow painted in the glow of evening seems a perfect example of a genre to be
popularized by Joseph Farquharson.
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