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Though James Johnstone was trained in design at the Edinburgh College of Art, his curriculum still extended to life studies of nudes, often in classical poses or dress, especially in his preliminary years when he attended as a night student. Completed when he was just eighteen years of age, this charcoal head study – possibly drawn after a bust rather than a live model – shows Johnstone’s ability to render light and shade in tonal variation rather than line, which would later become his more typical style.