John Ruskin saw in the fakery of Abbotsford, a sort of Scottish version of William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon, a reflection of all he considered false in Scott.

In 1926 he entered the Belfast School of Art, and in 1928 went on to the Slade School in London, where he studied under Henry Tonks and Randolph Schwabe, and for a time Shared a studio with John Luke.