Collection DC 090 - Records relating to Ted Odling

Ted Odling was born on 4th March 1921. He attended Sheffield College of Art from 1932-1938 winning the Montgomery medal and in 1939 he was awarded a Royal Scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London. Ted enrolled at the RCA in 1940; however his studies were interrupted by WWII in which he served as an instrument repairer in Italy and North Africa (1941-1946). He returned to the RCA after this period to complete his studies, graduating in Painting in 1948. In 1949 Ted started working at The Glasgow School of Art (GSA). Initially he was an Assistant in the Drawing and Painting Department, then in 1962 he began to run the experimental Section V of the General Course - an introductory course for first and second year students before they moved on to study specialisms. Ted became a Senior Assistant on the General course in 1966 and Director of Studies for the First Year Course in 1971. He retired from GSA in 1982. Ted met his future wife Elizabeth Harvey Jamieson (1924-2003) at GSA in 1949 where she was also teaching. Elizabeth had previously studied Commercial Art at GSA between 1941-1945, winning the Newbery Medal in her final year, and had also undertaken a postgraduate year at the RCA in engraving during 1949-1950. The couple married in 1952.