David Young Cameron was born on 28 June 1865 at Glasgow in Scotland. He was the son of a clergyman. Destined for a commercial career, he began studying at evening classes at the Glasgow School of Art and in 1885 at the age of 20, entered the Royal Institution, Edinburgh, as a full-time student. He was also encouraged to etch by the amateur artist George Stevenson. His earliest etchings date from 1884 and the strongest influence on his graphic work was Charles Meryon. In the period 1887-92 Cameron was a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. It was during that time, he published a number of sets of etchings such as ‘The Clyde Set’, ‘The North Holland Set’ and ‘The North Italian Set’. He became a leading member of the Scottish etching revival and in general his prints feature areas of great darkness, offset by highlights. He was interested in painting architecture and landscape and was much influenced by the work of Muirhead Bone and later, by Whistler. From early etchings and sketches Cameron also worked in oil and watercolour depicting the mountains of Scotland in an economical and uncluttered manner, which to a degree, reflected his personality. Cameron visited Italy in 1894, travelled out to Egypt in 1908-09 and then visited France. In 1899 he moved to Kippen, a small village near Stirling, where he lived for the rest of his life. After 1911 Cameron almost entirely devoted his art to the Scottish landscape. During the Great War, he was commissioned by the Canadian Government to paint war pictures in France 1917-18. He illustrated Sir Herbert Maxwell’s Story of the Tweed 1905, made etchings for an edition of The Compleat Angler 1902, and for R B Cunninghame-Graham’s District of Menteith 1930. Cameron would later become known for his church interiors and landscapes of Scotland done in drypoint. He was elected ARE in 1889, ARSA and ARWS in 1904, RWS in 1906, ARA (engraver) in 1911 and ARA (painter) in 1916, RSA in 1918 and RA in 1920. He was knighted in 1924 and appointed the King’s Painter and Limner in Scotland in 1933. He was a Trustee of the Scottish National Galleries, and of the Tate Gallery 1921-27. After giving up etching in 1917, Cameron took it up again in 1923 and then produced two of his greatest works Ben Lomond (1923) and The Thermae of Caracalla (1923). He produced over 500 etchings which enjoyed great popularity in the 1920s and 1930s. The demand for Cameron prints was such that by 1911, a set would fetch £460 at auction and by 1929, another set reached the astronomical sum of £1,290. He exploited his popularity by producing an unprecedented number of states of his prints, and is believed to hold the record at twenty-eight states in one case. In 1919 Cameron was appointed a member of both the Faculty of Painting and the newly formed Faculty of Engraving of the British School at Rome. In 1923 he travelled to Rome to visit the school. In 1922 with Charles Ricketts, he was asked to join the Committee of the National Art Collections Fund. Cameron’s work was highly sought by collectors, until the Great Crash of 1929 brought a collapse in prices for prints in general. Cameron had a keen interest in church music and ceremony. He was not interested in the decorative possibilities of painting and although he knew most of the Glasgow Boys and exhibited in many exhibitions with them, his work stands slightly outside the mainstream of the Glasgow School. A quiet and retiring man, Sir David died at Perth on 16 September 1945, at the age of 80. Kenneth Guichard would write in his book British Etchers: 1850-1940 (1981): ‘It has been considered by some that Cameron’s greatest achievement as an etcher lay in the last Scottish drypoints. … These last Scottish landscapes are not so much statements compelled by passion as the result of quiet contemplation and a measured love.’ Over the years, there has been a degree of confusion over the edition size of many of Cameron’s plates. With the exception of a few, unsigned etchings he submitted to arts periodicals like The Studio, almost all of his etchings were published in very small editions of 25 or less. Sir David’s work is represented in a number of collections, including the National Gallery of Scotland, the City of Edinburgh Art Collection and both the National Gallery of Canada and the National Gallery of New Zealand.  His oil on canvas painting Stirling Castle may be found in the collection of the Tate in London.