Walter Geikie, a deaf-mute artist, was born in Edinburgh on November 9th 1795.
The son of a pharmacist, Walter Geikie became deaf just before his 2nd birthday when he contracted a serious fever that resulted in permanent hearing loss. (It could have been meningitis). He grew up deaf and dumb and his father could not afford to send him to deaf schools in the south of England so his father searched for guidance to educate his son. Fortunately he came across Joseph Watson’s book The Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and used it to work tirelessly on Walter’s education, teaching him to communicate, read and write.
Walter's artistic ambitions emerged in his childhood, perhaps as a necessary means of self-expression. According to his biographer Thomas Dick Lauder he began drawing figures on the ground, walls, doors and pavements before he was given his first sketchbook. Again his family encouraged him and in 1812 he was admitted to the Trustees’ Academy of Edinburgh in which he received training from several tutors and he first exhibited in 1821.
After that he soon began showing his artworks regularly. His works gained respect and were very well received and esteemed so much that he was elected to the Scottish Academy in 1831 and then in 1834 he was honoured by being elected as an Academician. It appears that he was colour blind. He received special training to do oils but these oil works were not so successful as his etchings.
It was said that Geikie was a very lively and sociable person, possessing a strong sense of humour and was a gifted mimic, often entertaining other members of the Academy with his impersonations of people, making them roar with laughter. This would explain his acute observational skills as his depiction of the daily life of working people was a ‘warts and all’ approach that was unusual for his time.
Geikie associated with the deaf people of Edinburgh, communicating with them through sign language and was a cofounder of the world’s first Deaf Church and Society, the Edinburgh Deaf and Dumb Benevolent Society. He took active part in the work of this society but as he was a vigorous and sociable person, not shy at all, he was well known to the inhabitants of Edinburgh and very popular.
sually in hearing artists’ work their portraits of people would show their hands resting on their laps or holding something but in several of Walter’s works people were using their hands , there is no evidence he drew he fellow deaf mutes in the city, but some think that perhaps some of his subjects may have been using sign language.
Geikie died in August 1837 aged 41 after a short illness of a few days and he was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard. It was said he left over 1,100 original sketches, but no selfportrait could be traced.
Of his work the first two pics are my favourites, the first is Houses at the Head of the West Bow, Edinburgh and next is The Lawnmarket, Edinburgh. You can view lots more of his work here https://www.nationalgalleries.org/search
