A Visionary Etcher Bridging Scottish Tradition and Global Exploration James McBey was a master of the line and light, an artist whose life story is as much a narrative of self-invention as the evocative landscapes he captured on copper plates and canvas. Born in 1883 in Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, McBey’s journey from a humble clerk in a local bank to one of Scotland’s most celebrated printmakers is nothing short of extraordinary. Lacking formal academic training in his youth, he possessed an insatiable curiosity that led him to study the technical treatises of masters like Maxime Lalanne by ca…