Portrait of a Gallery - The Scottish Gallery

Artists
Post-War and Contemporary
Robert Colquhoun (1914-1962)
Woman with Flowers c.1959 pen and ink 51 x 38 cms
Robert Colquhoun was born in 1914 to working class parents from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. His art teacher
James Lyle helped him win a scholarship to Glasgow School of Art (1933-1937) he then won a travelling
scholarship to France and Italy along with his lifelong friend, lover and companion, Robert MacBryde.
They both moved to London in 1942 and quickly became associated with the neo-romantic group of
painters which included Prunella Clough, Keith Vaughan and John Minton. Their studio in Bedford Gardens
became the meeting place for the writers, painters and poets of the period. Picasso was an early influence
but when Jankel Adler moved into the same studio block an important European cerebral connection took
place and Colquhoun’s work moved away from the neo-romantic to concentrate on solitary figure or two
figure compositions. Few others applied the same confidence and ability to depict contemporary angst
and his rise to fame in the art world was meteoric. The critics loved him and he was, for a short period,
untouchable and achieved international recognition in the 1940s and early 1950s. Works such as Woman
with Leaping Cat (Tate Gallery) undoubtedly influenced Francis Bacon, waiting and watching closely in the
wings. Solo exhibitions under the guidance of Duncan MacDonald at the Lefèvre Gallery in Bond Street
were sell out sensations and the phrase the ‘Golden Boys of Bond Street’ was coined. In 1944 during
this high period, Colquhoun and MacBryde showed at The Scottish Gallery, in British and French Artists.
Colquhoun later became a master of the monotype technique as he slowly moved away from the canvas.
However, ‘Sohoitis’ took hold and the iron slowly crept into his soul. Success post 1951 saw ‘The Roberts’
as they were known to their friends, quickly decline into an erratic life of poverty. Robert Colquhoun died
in 1962. In March 2010 we hosted a small but detailed exhibition of ‘The Roberts’ which received wide
critical acclaim.
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