Stanley Cursiter (29 April 1887 – 22 April 1976) was an Orcadian artist who played an important role in introducing Post-impressionism and Futurism to Scotland. He served as the keeper (1919–1930), then director (1930–1948), of the National Galleries of Scotland, and as HM Limner and Painter in Scotland (1948–1976). Biography He was born on 29 April 1887 at 15 East Road in Kirkwall, Orkney, the son of John Scott Cursiter and Mary Joan Thomson. He was educated at Kirkwall Grammar School before moving to Edinburgh, where he studied at Edinburgh College of Art. His early paintings were influenced by cubism, futurism and vorticism. From an early age, he clearly had access to great wealth as his accommodation from 1910 is listed as 28 Queen Street, one of the most prestigious addresses in Edinburgh, and not affordable to the average art student. A banner he designed for the Orcadian Women's Suffrage Society was carried at the Coronation Procession in 1911, and his family in Orkney were keen supporters of the cause for women's rights and local convenor Margaret Baikie, whose portrait he painted in 1946. During First World War he served as an officer in 1st Battalion, the Cameronians and served in The Battle of the Somme, Amiens and Abbeville. The conditions in the trenches brought on bronchitis and asthma, and he was invalided out to convalesce in the South of France. After recuperating, he returned to the Battalion's base, but was once again hospitalised and in danger of becoming 'unfit for service'. However he managed to continue service by transferring to the 4th Field Ordnance Survey Battalion at 4th Army Headquarters and developed new and faster methods for processing aerial photographs. In particular, he devised a clever method of projecting the photographic negative taken from a spotter plane which replicated the tilt present when the photograph was taken – the technique of single photo-optical rectification. This greatly speeded up the process of rapid fixing of enemy gun emplacements. During the War, he also learned to use radio (becoming President of the Edinburgh Radio Society). He was Mentioned in Dispatches twice and received a military OBE. During the Second World War he initially worked at the Ordnance Survey Department in Southampton (1939–40) and then moved to the same organisation in Edinburgh (1940–1945). He received a military CBE in 1948. After the First World War he adopted a more realist style. Cursiter