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Elizabeth Mary Watt (18 February 1885 - 17 May 1954) was a Scottish painter. She was awarded the Lauder Prize in 1947.

Life
Elizabeth Mary Watt was born on 18 February 1885.

Her father was Alexander Thompson Watt (May 1851 - 18 August 1941).

Her mother was Elizabeth McEwan (27 April 1855 - 1918)

Art
Watt was to became one of the youngest 'Glasgow Girls'.

In 1919 she was elected to the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists.

1844 painting exhibition.

Death
Illness stopped Watt attending her last Glasgow Society of Lady Artists exhibition in April 1954.

The Dundee Courier of 10 April 1954 ran this article: Dundee-born artist can’t see her own exhibition. Illness will prevent artist Elizabeth Mary Watt from seeing her exhibition of paintings at The Lady Artists’ Club, Blythswood Square, Glasgow. It’s a good few years since Miss Watt left her native Dundee, but she’s a credit to her birthplace. After leaving Morgan Academy she settled in Glasgow, and there she attended Glasgow’s School of Art. Today she has 65 pictures on show at the club. This is her 10th exhibition in 20 years. A feature common to all her paintings is the wonderfully pure colouring. Most of her seascapes are done in Iona or Ardnamurchan. Her exhibition lasts till April 24.

She died on 17 May 1954 in Hillhead, Glasgow in the Western Infirmary hospital.

The then President of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists, De Courcy Lewthwaite Dewar, wrote this tribute in the Glasgow Herald of 19 May 1954: Miss Elizabeth Mary Watt, whose death has just been announced, was one of Glasgow's well known artists. For many years she was member of the Lady Artist's Club. Her work was full of imagination and colour, and her fairy illustrations were just outstanding. Besides her paintings she was very versatile, and her decorative work on china was remarkable. She had a gift for friendship and a lively sense of humour.

Funeral service.

Works
In a question regarding the stamp EMW on a tea service, the Aberdeen Press and Journal in 1998 gave this response as an answer: EMW is Elizabeth Mary Watt, a talented designer who flourished in the 1920s and 1930s. Like many women in her day, she would order blanks to decorate, then send them to a factory for firing. Elizabeth Mary Watt is particularly well known for her fairy watercolours, which now command high prices at auction, but this tea service is equally charming and beautifully hand-painted. A similar service with a teapot and six cups and saucers sold recently for £700. The service you describe would make probably about £300 at auction. Elizabeth Mary Watt dreamed of painting portraits of royalty, but by the late 1930 s a large proportion of her income was derived from painting ceramics. She lamented her fate to a friend in 1939: Now, alas, I paint butter dishes for the proletariat.

An old friend of Mary Elizabeth Watt wrote to the Evening Times on 26 September 1989 to describe some history of Watt, and also detail an exceptionally lucky find from a charity shop. Carl McDougall's reference to the Charing Cross mansions and its connections to lady artists reminded me of visits I made in my youth to the attic studio flat of one of those artists, Elizabeth Mary Watt, who was an accomplished watercolour painter who specialised in flower subjects.

She was at that time middle aged, a small stockily built lady with iron grey hair which was swept over her forehead in a fringe.

We used to sit out on the roof over her flat in summer evenings and talk for hours about Scottish art and literature, with the Charing Cross traffic sounding very remote below us.

Years passed and we got out of touch. The one day I saw a small watercolour picture in the window of a charity shop in Troon.

It was an original, priced at one pound, and it was signed Elizabeth Mary Watt. It now hangs in our guest room and it forms a fond link with the past.