As a portrait painter, Douglas belonged to the period of
John Singer Sargent and "...led a long life notable for its unassuming expression of civilized values". He was at home in Scotland as a painter and as a sportsman,
shooting,
riding and
sailing. He kept
ponies brought back from a visit to
Iceland. He came to attention at the
Royal Academy by being the first artist to hang a painting there of a
motor car, but was best known for his
portraits and his Scottish
landscapes, which "...portrayed, with a truly poetic sense of atmosphere, the subtle half-tones of his native countryside". In 1900, Douglas painted the author
John Buchan. His portrait of his friend
George Howson, headmaster of
Gresham's School, hangs at the school. In 1904, London's
Temple Bar magazine reported In June 1907, Douglas held an exhibition of his portraits at the
Alpine Club in
London.
The International Studio noted that In
Scottish Painting, Past and Present, 1620-1908 (1908), James Lewis Caw wrote of Douglas's portrait work: However, Caw says elsewhere in the same book In 1909,
The International Studio said of a painting in dazzle camouflage, 1918 On 9 November 1912, under the headline 'Sholto J. Douglas Coming Here', the
New York Times reported Douglas's sailing from London for the
United States, having "a number of commissions to paint portraits in
New York". His work also includes many paintings of "
dazzle ships" during the
First World War, and the
Imperial War Museum has fifty-two of these paintings. In December 1921, the novelist
Arnold Bennett noted in his journal that on
Boxing Day he had lunched with Douglas and his wife at the
Hotel Bristol in
Cannes to meet the Polish singer
Jean de Reszke. From 1926 to 1939, Douglas lived in France and painted many landscapes in
Provence. ==Marriage and descendants==