Louis Reid Deuchars was born in Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland on 12 April 1870. Whilst working as a stained glass designer (possibly for J. Guthrie & W. Wells), he attended Glasgow School of Art in 1887-88. In c.1895 Deuchars sent "Picturesque Glasgow", a set of 40 lithographs he had drawn of his native city to the artist George Frederic Watts (1817-1904). Watts subsequently invited him to work as his assistant in Compton, Surrey. In addition to assisting Watts on some of his late sculptures, he worked with Watt's wife, Mary Fraser Tytler (Mary Watts) on the decoration of the Watts Mortuary Chapel in Compton from 1895 to 1900 and assisted her in running classes for the local villagers, who modelled the decorative terra cotta tiles for the chapel.
Following a commission from James Pittendrigh MacGillivray (1856-1932) in 1908 to work on the Gladstone memorial in Edinburgh, Deuchars returned to Scotland. The association with MacGillivray dissolved after only a few weeks. Soon after, Deuchars formed a partnership with the architect Robert Lorimer (1964-1925). Lorimer had been commissioned to design the new Chapel of the Knights of the Order of the Thistle at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. In 1910-11) Deuchars executed all the plaster models for the figure work, inside and outside the building. Lorimer and Deuchars subsequently worked together on a number of projects, including a bronze group for the Glenelg War Memorial situated on the shores of Glenelg Bay in the Scottish Highlands.
Between the late 1890s and 1925, Deuchars exhibited at the Royal Academy, New Gallery, and Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; and at the Royal Scottish Academy and Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours in Edinburgh.
Deuchars died on 19 September 1927 and was buried in Saughton Cemetery, Edinburgh.
Text source: Arts + Architecture Profiles from Art History Research net (AHRnet) https://www.arthistoryresearch.net/
