David Forrester Wilson studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1892-93 and again from 1899, when he worked under the influential Belgian Symbolist painter Jean Delville (1867-1953). His senior by just 6 years, Delville taught at the School from 1899-1906. Appointed to the staff in 1903 as studio assistant under Delville’s tenure, Wilson went on to become Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting, and then from 1932-1938 Head of Department.

As well as the influence of Delville, who retained a life-long fascination with the Occult and expounded the importance of the aesthetic of the ideal, the work of Wilson's direct contemporaries also proved formative. His peers included ‘The Four’: James Herbert Mc...