Very occasionally a person enters your life who makes a long and lasting impression. This was the case for renowned artist Victoria Crowe when she moved to Scotland to teach at Edinburgh College of Art and moved next door to a lady who led a unique and self-sufficient lifestyle in the Pentland Hills.

Victoria and her artist husband Michael Walton came north in 1968, but it was when the couple moved into the remote hamlet of Kittleyknowe, 1,000ft up in the Pentland Hills, in 1970 that they met Jenny Armstrong. Jenny was 67 at the time and had been a shepherdess all of her life. Though retired, she still had a flock of sheep and hens.

Victoria and Jenny became friends. Though the two had led very different lives, they intrigued each other and Victoria started including images of Jenny within her artwork of the surrounding countryside. Without even realising, she built up a poignant collection that chronicled Jenny’s survival in the hills, through to when she became infirm and died aged 82 in 1985. Jenny’s life was celebrated in 2000 when the Scottish National Portrait Gallery showed Victoria’s ‘Shepherd’s Life’ diary of works.

The Fleming Collection in London is honouring Jenny in the first quarter of this year when it too hosts Victoria’s collection. ‘Jenny was quite interested when these odd artists moved next door to her,’ recalls Victoria. ‘She liked the fact that I would stand out in the snow just so that I could draw a tree. She started to share her view of the landscape with us and occasionally when I was drawing or painting I would be aware of Jenny outside. I originally included her figure to give the paintings scale. The first painting in which I included her presence was simply her footprints and the next was in my painting ‘Large Tree Group’.’ She adds: ‘I used to go out with her to feed the hens in the morning. She did not like to be photographed so I would be drawing the dog or hens and would quickly catch her too. She assumed quite an importance in my life and would come to my exhibitions in Edinburgh and talk to people, telling them about where she lived and worked. She took great delight in seeing bits of herself captured in this place where she had lived all of her life.’

The ‘Shepherd’s Life’ exhibition, which shows more than 40 works, is a touching diary of a 15-year span of Jenny’s life – from the image of her striding out in the snow to feed the sheep on ‘December 25th’, to the heart-wrenching figure of an ageing wheelchair-bound Jenny in her last portrait. One particular image, entitled ‘Two Views’ – a view from inside Jenny’s cottage, where she can be seen through a window out in the snow – captured the imagination of the Duke of Buccleuch, who recently commissioned an 8ft by 4ft tapestry of the work. Woven by Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, the tapestry will be on show beside the original 4ft by 2ft painting. ‘The colours of the wool are so beautiful,’ says Victoria. ‘Jenny had some Jacob’s sheep and a local lady who also has Jacob’s sheep gathered some wool for me and we got it spun in Edinburgh and incorporated into the tapestry. The exhibition will also feature a video of local people who all knew Jenny when she started as a shepherdess.’ She adds: ‘Jenny taught me how people can look at a landscape and see different things. She would see a tree as a shelter. When she lost sheep she always knew to look for them by a dry stone dyke – to me the dry stone dyke was a punctuation on the landscape. Even the way that she constructed fences and collected and arranged stones was like she was making little bits of land art.

‘When I saw the original exhibition in 2000 I realised that a lot of things I do in my work now came from when I used to draw Jenny – I would see landscape behind through the window or in a mirror. Then came the idea that you could paint about someone in their absence just by the things they had around them.’ It is clear that Jenny Armstrong had a pivotal role in Victoria Crowe’s life. The trust and friendship the two women held has resulted in a thought-provoking collection of artwork that is bound to stir questions and emotions in all those who view it.

Fact File ‘Victoria Crowe – A Shepherd’s Life’ can be seen at The Fleming Collection, 13 Berkeley Street, London, W1J 8DU, from 13 January until 21 March. The Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond Street, London, W1S 2JT, is also holding a selling exhibition of Victoria Crowe’s work, ‘Messages and Connections’, throughout January. For more information see www.flemingcollection.co.uk and www.faslondon.com