Conroy, Stephen

Person

Conroy, Stephen

1964-

Stephen Conroy was born in Helensburgh in 1964 and attended the Glasgow School of Art from 1982-87. His work has been highly acclaimed since leaving GSA, and he has remained in Scotland, working out of a studio in Renton, Dumbartonshire near Glasgow.

Drawing on the figurative Glasgow tradition, Old Master paintings and the work of Degas and Sickert, Conroy concentrates on depicting the male figure, either alone or in groups. His paintings of the 1980s have a strange and theatrical atmosphere, leading the viewer to question the narrative of the painting, which is often enigmatic. From the late 1990s, Conroy began to explore figures in motion, concentrating predominantly on the male figure in isolation against a plain background.

In 1998, Conroy won the Grand Prize of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. He prefers to steer clear of publicity and appears to work mainly on commission – he has had only a small number of solo exhibitions in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, New York and Madrid organised through Marlborough Fine Art, the London Gallery which represents him.

His paintings have been acquired by a number of public and private collections including The British Council, London, England; The Contemporary Art Society, London, England; Frissiras Museum, Athens, Greece; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; National Portrait Gallery, London, England; Robert Fleming Holdings Ltd., London, England; The Royal College of Surgeons of England; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland; Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland; Aberdeen Art Gallery and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, England

• GSA Registers
• www.nationalgalleries.org