Out of the blue I received an email from Dr Iain Macdonald asking whether I knew of any connection between Robert Keable and his great uncle. Iain was in Tahiti launching his new book William Alister Macdonald, Watercolours from Thurso, the Thames and Tahiti about the life and work of the artist and he had just come across my book about my grandfather. In my ignorance I had never heard of the artist nor have I ever come across his name in connection with Robert Keable. But the similarities between the two men’s lives are uncanny and it seems very unlikely that the two did not meet in Tahiti.

William Alister Macdonald

William Alister MacDonald was born in northern Scotland in 1861, and bought up by his grandparents (after both his parents died before he was 5) near Thurso. At 15 he started working in the local bank and four years later managed to get a job in another bank down in London.

Always a keen painter, once he settled in London he started to take evening classes at the St. Martin’s School of Art and then joined the Gilbert Garret Sketch Club where he was first recognised, winning second prize in a Landscape competition organised by the Society of British Artists.

The prize encouraged him to give up his banking job and to start make a living as a painter. From 1885 to 1898 he learnt his craft, partly inspired by the river Thames. He painted glorious watercolours of the bridges, wharfs and crafts on the river and found a market for his paintings and drawings through the Kensington Fine Arts Society.

In 1898 William met and married Lucy Winifred Carey a well respected minaturist painter. By now William was making a good living from his painting and was winning commissions to illustrate a number of different publications. He also began to travel around Europe to paint. He didn’t experiment with different techniques - despite the exciting developments going on in the art world at the turn of the century – instead sticking to painting landscape watercolours.

In 1910, the same year as Ian, their only child was born, Lucy and William opened The Little Gallery on Victoria Street in Westminster. William continued to travel and also started to teach part-time. But it is the many London paintings of this time which made William such an important artist capturing buildings, alleyways, churches and the like which no longer exist.

When war broke out in 1914 he enlisted for military service and joined the Army Service Supply Department, working first in Whitehall and later Reading. The war bought to an end his many visits abroad but William still managed to travel round the country and made a number of visits to Norfolk where he began to spend some time with Dorothy Myhill, a young civil servant. In 1919 William gave Dorothy a painting of Monk’s Wood - with the couples initials clearly carved onto one of the trees. Dorothy’s father persumably  horrified by his daughter’s relationship with a man double her age forbad William from entering their house, and tried to break up the relationship. Clearly he failed as two years later William and Dorothy decided to run away together.

Running away to Tahiti

William was 60 and Dorothy 31when they arrived in Tahiti in July 1921. Just as Jolie Buck had called herself Jolie Keable when she arrived in Tahiti, Dorothy took William’s surname. For William it was a chance to start again doing the same thing, in a new market. He was immediately out there with his easel and watercolours travellng around the island painting landscapes.

Quite what Dorothy made of the whole experience history does not relate but three years later she headed home to England where she continued to live as Dorothy Macdonald until she married George Wrafter a retired army officer in 1934. He died in 1936 and she returned to Norfolk where she lived for another 45 years before dying in 1981.

Within a year of Dorothy leaving, William was living with a Tahitian widow, Tipari, and in 1926 they had a daughter Avril.

Iain and I have not found any evidence to prove that Robert and William met in Tahiti, but it seems inconceivable that they didn’t. Dorothy suggested she and William also lived in Gauguin’s house, which if they did would have been after Jolie and Robert had ‘done up’ the shack in 1922. William formed firm friendships with James Norman Hall and Charles Nordhoff – as did Robert; and William went fishing with Zane Grey in 1927 - as did Robert.

William lived in Tahiti for 13 years just outside the capital Papeete, first in Patutoa and later in Pirae, with his partner Tipari Tuera and their daughter Avril. Like Robert he made the occasional trip to San Fransisco and to various the French Polynesian islands including the Marquesas but did not return to Europe. However in 1934 his son Ian died in a sailing accident on the Thames and the following year he returned to England for an extended trip where he seems to have been reconciled with his wife.

In 1937 William returned to Tahiti, accompanying James Norman Hall and his wife and daughter, who had been in Vancouver, back to the island. The main purpose of his visit appears to have been an attempt to formally adopt his daugher and to bring her back to England, but she wanted to stay with her mother. So in 1939 William returned to England and spent the next 12 years living with his wife.

Lucy died at the beginning of 1951 and William decided, aged 89, to return to Tahiti. Tragically Tipari Tuera also died before he returned. He spent the last five years of his life looked after by his daughter Avril and her second husband Ben, on the island of Moorea.

William Alister Macdonald, Watercolours from Thurso, the Thames and Tahiti by Iain Macdonald

Iain’s book was published in September 2024 and is a wonderful book, beautifully illustrated with over one hundred paintings and drawings by the artist. Macdonald is an important painter because so many of his landscapes are of a forgotten London much changed by early 20^th century modernisation and WW2 bombings and his accurate atmospheric paintings are a joy.

For me the other joy of the book is the story of Macdonald’s time in Tahiti and the parrells between Macdonald’s and my grandfather’s story, although I suspect most readers will be more interested in the similarties between Gauguin and Macdonald’s life. For whatever reason you pick up the book I strongly recommend it.

Book available: https://www.unicornpublishing.org/page/detail/william-alister-macdonald/?k=9781916846241