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William Macdonald (1883 - 1960) was a Scottish painter.

Life
His father was the artist Alfred Macdonald.

His mother was Mary Ritchie.

He married the artist Beatrice Marie Louise Huntington (1889 - 13 April 1988), the daughter of William Huntington (born 1853), a St. Andrews doctor and Charlotte MacLeod Bowles (21 August 1849 - 16 December 1919).

Death
He died on 31 January 1960 in Longmore Hospital in Edinburgh. He died of bronchopneumonia.

His obituary was in The Scotsman of 4 February 1960: Obituary “SPANISH” MACDONALD Edinburgh painter The death has occurred in Edinburgh of Mr William Macdonald, whose Spanish landscapes, a feature of his work as a painter, earned him the soubriquet among his fellow painters of “ Spanish " Macdonald. William Macdonald, who was in his early 70s, was the son of a Scottish artist living in London. In early life he studied in Paris, combining his studies there with process engraving. From Paris he went to Madrid, where he did a considerable amount of copying of Velasquez in particular. After that he painted in Southern Spain, living in the country and speaking the language fluently. Macdonald came to Scotland before the First World War, and was in Dundee for some years. It was here that he met his wife, Beatrice M. Huntington, the daughter of a well-known St Andrews doctor, who was his pupil and herself established a reputation as a painter. After the war, in which he served throughout with the Scots Greys, he set up a studio in Edinburgh, at the corner of York Place and St Andrew’s Street. Here he painted figure subjects, portraits and landscapes, and numbered among his intimate friends Peploe and Cadell. HIGHLY INDIVIDUAL William Macdonald was at his happiest in his Spanish landscapes. The severity of the little hill towns appealed to something in his nature. These arid landscapes are reserved in colour, but are highly individual works of art. He was an extremely competent workman and a severe critic of both his own and other people’s work. This criticism was frequently allied to an asperity which sometimes gave offence, but it was based on sound judgment, and below the coldness, a warmth was often observable. A member of the Society of Scottish Artists and for some time on its council, Macdonald was an authority on etching and to a great extent responsible for the National Gallery of Scotland taking over the collection of etchings formerly in the possession of Ernest S. Lumsden, R.S.A. He is survived by his wife and one son.