David West, RSW was a watercolour painter of land, sea and sky. He was born on 12 November 1868 in Lossiemouth, the youngest of 12 children, and died 8 October 1936 in Glasgow following a seizure.

West was the son of Captain James West, commander of a sailing schooner. From 1889 to 1894, West exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy in London. That five-year period saw him being accepted for the Royal Academy on successive years.

When still in his twenties he had won for himself a wide reputation as a watercolour landscape painter. In 1892 he was commissioned by the Countess of Aberdeen to undertake a number of paintings for her. He was well rewarded by the Countess and so in early 1893 he traveled to the Netherlands to study Dutch art. He returned that same year to Lossiemouth and set up a studio. In 1897, this studio burned down and he lost many paintings including several that he had done in oils.

It was soon after this that he left for British Columbia to take part in the Klondike Gold Rush. He returned to Lossiemouth in November 1898 with numerous sketches and photographs and exhibited four of his Klondike paintings at the RSA the following year.

West's paintings were largely of Morayshire scenes but one of his most famous paintings was the Dutch landscape "On the Scheldt" which was hung in Edinburgh in 1932.

He was elected as Vice-President of the RSW in 1935.

He died on 7 October 1936 in Glasgow while attending the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts where he had several paintings on show. Two paintings were posthumously exhibited at the same venue in 1937.