Item NMC/1444 - Afternoon at Nico's

Painter, notably of portraits of his artistic contemporaries; teacher, writer and curator of exhibitions. He was born in Dunfermline, Fife, and studied at Edinburgh college of Art, 1960-4. For the next decade he worked in an engineering factory and as a photographer. From 1968-78 Moffat was chairman of 57 Gallery, Edinburgh, and he went on to select several shows of contemporary painting. From 1979 Moffat taught at Glasgow School of Art, breathing new life into the School's tradition of hard-edged figurative painting. He became head of painting and chairman of the school of fine art. Among Moffat's exhibitions was one of his portraits at Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 1973; a travelling show of portraits of Scottish poets, organised by Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1981-2; and portraits of young artists at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1988.