Gordon B. Coutts Paintings

Gordon B. Coutts led a peripatetic career, born in Aberdeen, Scotland, he then studied and traveled to Glasgow, London, Paris and Rome before settling in Melbourne, Australia in 1891. In 1896, he moved to Sydney, where he taught at the Art Society of New South Wales, before returning back to Europe in 1899. With the climate of northern Europe detrimental to Coutts' poor health, he moved with his wife, Alice Grey, to the United States where he became a frequent exhibitor at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. In 1920, he traveled to Tangiers, Morocco, dressed as an Arab, he passed from tribe to tribe observing the lifestyle, customs and practices of the village people and Bedouins. Coutts' visit to Tangiers coincided with the Ashura Festival, at a time when visitors were barred from attending such events. Coutts' natural curiosity and the fact that these rituals had never been photographed led Coutts to adopt a hooded local dress and try to pass unobserved in the crowd. He witnessed the pilgrims clad only in loose white blouses, their feet bare, dancing and leaping like dervishes, singing and shouting along the narrow streets of Tangier. They carried hatchets, bladed weapons and spiked iron balls on chains to self-inflict wounds. The artist recorded the pilgrims lacerating their own skulls, backs and shoulders, the blood streaming down their faces until they eventually dropped from exhaustion. Each participant performs these rituals as a form of penitence.