Colquhoun, Robert

Person

Colquhoun, Robert

1914-1962

Born in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire 20 Dec 1914, the eldest son of Robert & Janet Colquhoun. He attended Loanhead Primary School, and from 1926, Kilmarnock Academy, specialising in Art from 1929-1932 under Mr James Lyle, Head of Art.

Colquhoun started as an apprentice in the local engineering works where his father was employed, but financial aid was raised to allow him to finish his course at the Academy and to attend art school (Sir Alexander Walker of Piersland, Troon was a notable patron).

Colquhoun enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art in 1933, where he met Robert MacBryde, who became his lifelong partner – the pair became known as ‘the two Roberts’. At the GSA he studied under Hugh Crawford and lan Fleming, winning a minor travelling scholarship to London in 1936 (report in the GSA Archives ‘Secretary and Treasurer papers’, 1936). Then in 1939, a grant for post-diploma study and a Scholarship to Europe, (again, Colquhouln’s report in GSA Archives, Secretary and Treasurer papers, 1940). He returned to Scotland in August 1939 and spent much of 1940 sketching with MacBryde in Ayrshire.

Colquhoun was called up to the RAMC but was declared unfit for service in 1941 and settled in London with MacBryde. (MacBryde was exempt from military service because of TB). In London, Colquhoun drove ambulances as a member of the Civil Defence Corps by day and painted at night.

From the mid-1940s to the early 1950s he was considered one of the leading artists of his generation. Along with that of MacBryde, his work was regularly shown at the Lefevre Gallery in London. At the height of their acclaim the two Roberts courted a large circle of friends - including Michael Ayrton, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and John Minton as well as the writers Fred Urquhurt, George Barker, Elizabeth Smart and Dylan Thomas - and were renowned for their parties at their studio, 77 Bedford Gardens. Colquhoun was also a prolific printmaker, producing a large number of lithographs and monotypes throughout his career.

Between 1942 and 1962 Colquhoun put together seven one-man shows and contributed to eleven others. He also undertook commissioned works for private collectors, book publishers and for the theatre. Notably he and MacBryde worked on costumes and stage design for Massine's new Scottish ballet "Donald of the Burthens" in 1951, and in 1953 worked on costumes and decor for George Devine's production of King Lear at Stratford.
Between 1943 and 1954, although based in London, he spent much time in Cornwall, Essex and Sussex. However, by the 1950’s, the two Roberts artistic reputation was in decline, and their heavy drinking made any serious effort to paint impossible, and a friend described them as close to destitution.
Colquhoun died, an alcoholic, in relative obscurity in London in 1962 and was buried in Kilmarnock. MacBryde moved to Dublin, where he was killed in a traffic accident in 1966.

The Dick Institute, Kilmarnock, has a large collection of Colquhoun’s early drawings, letters and paintings.

• GSA Registers and Annual Reports
• The Two Roberts, NGS Exhibition Catalogue 2014
• Wikipedia