About
The William Lamb Studio in Montrose has been preserved substantially as the sculptor left it, and it is one of the most complete artist's working spaces open to the public anywhere in Scotland. Lamb designed the building himself, and it contains a collection of his sculptures, prints and drawings alongside the workroom with his tools still in place and the living room furnished with pieces he made to his own designs. He bequeathed the studio and its contents to the town on his death in 1951, an act of foresight without which none of it would have survived.
William Lamb was born in Montrose in 1893 and trained as a monumental mason before studying at Edinburgh College of Art. His career was interrupted and then permanently reshaped by the First World War: wounded on the Western Front, he lost the effective use of his right hand, and taught himself over several painful years to carve, model and draw with his left. That he went on to produce work of the quality he did makes the studio a document of persistence as much as of artistic method.
His reputation rests principally on portraiture. In 1932 and 1933 he modelled the Duchess of York, later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and her daughters Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, commissions that brought him national attention. Alongside these he produced sharply observed heads of Angus fisherfolk, farm workers and local characters, and a body of etchings and drawings that stand comfortably on their own merits.
Lamb belonged to the remarkable circle that gathered in Montrose between the wars, when Hugh MacDiarmid worked here as a journalist and the town became an unlikely centre of the Scottish Renaissance. The painter Edward Baird, the novelist Fionn Mac Colla and the writers Violet Jacob and Willa Muir were all connected to it. Openings are run by the Friends of the William Lamb Studio and are limited and seasonal, so checking before travelling is essential. The reward for the effort is one of the few places in Scotland where a significant artist's entire working environment survives intact rather than as a reconstruction, and Montrose Museum a few minutes away holds further Lamb material for anyone who wants more.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Always check before travelling. The studio opens only when the Friends can staff it, which in practice means limited summer afternoons, and it is shut for most of the year.
- Contact ANGUSalive or Montrose Museum to confirm current opening, or to ask about access outside the published season.
- Ask the volunteers about Lamb's left-handed technique. It is the thing that makes the work extraordinary and it is not obvious from simply looking.
- Look at the Angus portrait heads as carefully as the royal ones. The fisherfolk and farm workers are, for many visitors, the better sculptures.
- Combine the visit with Montrose Museum, five minutes' walk away, which holds further Lamb material alongside the town's wider collections.
- Montrose station is a seven-minute walk on the Aberdeen to Dundee line, making this straightforward without a car.
- The studio is small and preserved rather than adapted, so access is restricted in places — contact ANGUSalive in advance if this matters.
- Allow time for Montrose Basin, three kilometres away, a tidal lagoon that holds thousands of pink-footed geese in autumn and is one of the best wildlife sites on the east coast.
Highlights
The Preserved Workroom
Lamb's workroom survives substantially as he left it, with his tools, modelling stands, plaster and half-finished work in place. Preserved artists' studios are rare and preserved sculptors' studios rarer still, because the trade generates so much mess and equipment that clearing out is the usual fate.
Standing among the chisels, calipers and armatures gives visitors an unusually direct sense of how a sculptor of this period actually worked — the physical labour involved, the sequence from clay to plaster to stone or bronze, and the sheer quantity of specialised kit the craft demanded.
Very little has been tidied or arranged for effect, which is precisely what gives the room its authority.
A Left Hand Learned From Scratch
Lamb was wounded on the Western Front and lost the effective use of his right hand, the hand he had trained as a monumental mason and an art student. Over several years he taught himself to carve, model, draw and etch left-handed, rebuilding a lifetime's motor skill from nothing in middle youth. Knowing this transforms the experience of looking at the work in the studio, because the confident modelling and the fluent etched line were achieved by a man doing everything the hard way.
It is one of the more remarkable stories in twentieth-century Scottish art, and Lamb himself appears to have discussed it rarely, treating the relearning as a practical problem to be solved rather than an affliction to be dwelt on.
The Royal Portraits
In 1932 and 1933 Lamb modelled the Duchess of York, later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and then her daughters Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret as children. The commissions brought a Montrose sculptor to national notice and represent the high point of his public reputation. The studio holds material relating to them, and the heads repay comparison with his portraits of Angus fishermen and farm workers: the same unsentimental attention to bone structure and character is applied to duchess and fishwife alike, which says something about the man and rather more about the quality of his eye.
Portraits of Angus People
The bulk of Lamb's portrait work depicts the people among whom he lived: Ferryden and Montrose fisherfolk, farm servants, tradesmen and local characters, modelled with a directness and lack of flattery that gives them real force. These heads constitute a collective portrait of an Angus community in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and they carry considerable documentary as well as artistic value.
For many visitors they are more affecting than the royal commissions, precisely because the sitters were not being commemorated for anything in particular.
Collections
The William Lamb Studio preserves the working and living spaces of the Montrose sculptor and etcher William Lamb (1893-1951), in a building he designed himself and bequeathed with its contents to the town on his death. Holdings comprise his sculptures, principally portrait heads including the 1932-33 studies of the Duchess of York and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret alongside many portraits of Angus fisherfolk, farm workers and local people; his prints and drawings; his workroom with tools, stands and unfinished work substantially as he left it; and his living room furnished with pieces of his own design and making.
The studio also documents Lamb's re-education of his left hand after a First World War wound destroyed the use of his right.
The Studio as Lamb Left It
The preserved workroom with tools, modelling stands and unfinished pieces, together with the living room and its self-designed furniture, kept close to the condition of the sculptor's own occupation.
The Sculpture, Prints and Drawings
Lamb's portrait heads, including the royal commissions of 1932-33 and his studies of Angus fisherfolk and working people, alongside his etchings and drawings.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.