C Stanley Todd

[MelodeonMan]

C Stanley Todd was an Edinburgh Engraver does anyone know for a fact where he came from he engraved many prints on Scottish Game birds,or if anyone has heard of a painter called Gordon Haines I also have a few of his watercolours of Fife,they are bothe great at what they do.Id like to find out all I can about C Stanley Todd.

[choso]

Hi,
Did you ever find out anything on C stanley Todd as I have come across another of his prints, 'Grouse', and cant find anything on the artist.

Thanks for any help
C

[arty71]

Charles Stanley Todd (known as Stanley, 1923-2004) was not an engraver, nor from Edinburgh...he hailed from Northumberland where he grew up with a love, becoming an obsession with the work of the late Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935). He was determined to emulate his boyhood hero and taught himself to draw and paint with watercolours. He began visiting Highland Perthshire in the 1950's with the intention of becoming a professional artist and became friends with a local gamekeeper and his family in the Rannoch area with whom he would stay during his trips north. He worked at perfecting his craft, although many would argue that his work was mostly Thorburn's birds and mammals painted into different landscapes and this is certainly evident in his early paintings.

Todd, his sister, niece and nephews moved to Crieff in the late 1960's before buying a run down church manse on a nearby estate which he would renovate and use as a base as he attempted to establish himself as a professional wildlife artist. He enjoyed some limited success during the early 1970's with an exibition and series of prints, however his obsession with Thorburn rather than the wildlife itself caused him to make some major anatomical errors, a famous one being a winter Ptarmigan scene in which all the birds are male.

In the mid 1970's he took the first of many commissions from the whisky company Matthew Gloag & Sons, producers of The Famous Grouse brand who reproduced his paintings on the bottle label and later many more aspects of advertising their brand. Whilst there would be little doubt that this would become the most financially successful era of Todd's career, it was also the point at which he effectively became solely a 'Grouse' artist and painted little else until Gloags dropped him in favour of Rodger McPhail, around the early 1990's. McPhail had establised himself as the foremost natural history and sporting artist from a relatively early stage in his career, as well as one of the most prolific.

Ill health plagued Todd throughout the 1990's, in all probability due to, or exaccerbated by, many years of consuming an excess of the product which carried his artwork. The last 4 years of his life were spent desperately trying to avoid trial at the High Court in Edinburgh after being prosecuted, along with his nephew, on several charges of serious sexual abuse of a number of young teenaged boys between the 1960's and 1980's. Another of Todd's nephews was alleged to have been part of the paedophile ring but was never charged due to a lack of evidence. Stanley and nephew Michael stood trial only for one day late in 2003, the trial being halted because of his health. Todd died in the spring of 2004 having used his age and ill health to delay the legal process many times, however upon his death his nephew Michael Todd stood trial on lesser charges than his uncle, and was convicted unanimously of abusing three boys in the 1980's, one as young as five.

[Lachlan09]

Did he have a brother called Onyer ?

[Andy Opray]

Having had occasion to visit Stanley Todd back in the 70s, I can confirm that the posting by arty71 to be accurate.

Andy.