Dealer Malcolm Innes.
1 How did you get your start?
After school at Wellington, I was one of the last to be called up for National Service, which I did in the Scots Guards and later completed eight years in the Black Watch as a Territorial. At age 20 I went up to Cambridge and earned something called a Special Degree.
After a year in Canada, I decided to try my luck in the City. Ten years later, I decided I would be happier working for myself rather than for a bank. I teamed up briefly with David McDonald Booth in Walton Street but was soon on my own doing everything from buying and selling works of art, bicycling to the West End to view sales, keeping the garden tidy and learning how to kneel on the floor when framing.
2 Where did the gallery begin?
In Walton Street before a brave move up to the West End in Bury Street, and in Edinburgh to Dundas Street. I dealt in Scottish, sporting, landscape and military pictures up to 2001, all close to the hearts of two ex-servicemen directors and keen sportsmen. I was also a leading Cresta Run Rider and bagpipe player. It was all a bit of a risk but a lot less so then than now.
People actually came into galleries in those days and we all had face-to-face meetings without relying on mobiles and the internet. In the end, I ran galleries in London and Edinburgh for over 30 years up to 1981.
3 What are you doing now?
Like so many ex-dealers I’ve found that I cannot just give it up. Having moved back to my native county, Perthshire, even having recently hit 85, I still operate from home and from the Scottish Antique & Arts Centre down the road at Abernyte. Once a year I have given an exhibition in the Black Watch Museum in Perth with my erstwhile partner Anthony Woodd.
4 What is one great discovery you’ve made?
If I had to select pictures which gave me most pleasure as well as a decent return I would go for Richard Ansdell’s Scottish paintings, a set of six Balfour-Browne original watercolours of Red Deer, now safely offshore on the West Coast, and, very recently, helping to trace the background of a George Stubbs oil of A Man Pheasant Shooting, finding it was ‘right’ and not a copy.
5 Do you collect?
Yes, too much according to my wife. It consists almost entirely of Scottish and sporting-related pictures. Sadly most buying is done online not in empty auctioneers’ salerooms which used to buzz with excitement. One of my most unforgettable moments was when Anthony and I were caught driving from Sotheby’s old premises to Walton Street holding on to a large Richard Ansdell canvas on the roof.
When I explained the background, the magistrate agreed it wasn’t very dangerous and let me go without a fine. But as I left the courtroom, the justice of the peace said: “You’re a very foolish art dealer.”
