Golden Years opens just prior to the joint retrospective at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh and we have compiled the largest collection of works for sale since the Mayor Gallery exhibition in 1977. Colquhoun and MacBryde were painters and partners in life; they were working class heroes from Ayrshire, who emerged as stars from Glasgow School of Art. They heralded anew era in modern art in London during the 1940s, and their work was sought for international collections.
Golden Years pays particular attention to where the artists come from; their sexuality prevented them from living an ‘honest’ life in Scotland but their backgrounds in Ayrshire were a constant source of inspiration and many of the images within this catalogue, some seen for the first time, speak to their roots.
Robert MacBryde was a still life and figurative painter and a theatre set designer. Born in Maybole, he came from a poor working class family and worked in a shoe factory before gaining a place at Glasgow School of Art (1932-37). At art school he met fellow painter Robert Colquhoun, with whom he established a life long relationship and jointly they became known as ‘The Two Roberts’. They moved to London in 1939 and MacBryde had his first solo exhibition at the Reid & Lefevre Gallery in 1943.
Robert Colquhoun died of heart failure in 1962. Soon after MacBryde moved to Ireland, and for a time shared a house with Patrick Kavanagh, Robert MacBryde died in 1966 in Dublin as a result of a street accident.
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