Elected ARSA: 18 March 1896
Joseph Thorburn Ross was born in Edinburgh in 1854. He was educated at the Scottish Institute. He showed a taste for art in his early life, but his father placed him in a merchant’s office in Leith, where he was employed for some years. He spent some time in Gloucester and upon his return to Edinburgh in 1876, he entered the Board of Trustees School of Design with approval from his father.
In 1877 he was admitted to the Life School of the Royal Scottish Academy and in 1879 he was awarded the Stuart Prize for Composition and Design. He began exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1872 and continued to contribute annually from then on.
