Requiem Construction (John Maclean)

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Will MacLean
Born Inverness, 1941

Requiem Construction (John Maclean), 1974

Box construction with found and painted objects
Purchased 1979 from the Artist with the Morris Trust Fund
Museum number 126-1979

Maclean spent time working as a sailor and a fisherman before going on to study art in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Requiem Construction (John Maclean) is one of the first of the box constructions which are central to Maclean’s work. It was made in memory of the artist’s father, Captain John Maclean, who was Harbour Master at Inverness. Maclean made it in 1974, a year after beginning his epic Ring Net project, a conceptual, documentary exhibition about in-shore fishing off the Scottish west coast.

The objects in this work, as in many of Maclean’s box constructions, encapsulate personal memories and historical associations not only from the artist’s life but also from the traditional culture of Scottish fisherfolk. The combination of techniques with which the objects are made, from painted to casting to direct assemblage of ready-mades like the Captain’s cap-badge, recall traditional marine carvings and hand-made tools as well as flotsam and jetsam.