Abigail McLellan (11 July 1969 – 11 October 2009) was a Scottish artist. She primarily showed her work at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery and the

Glasgow Print Studio Glasgow Print Studio is an arts organisation situated in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1972, Glasgow Print Studio is an organisation with charitable status that exists to encourage and promote the art of printmaking; it is supported by the Creat ...

Biography

McLellan was born in

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

, where her father was an engineer with ICI, but her family moved to

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from the ...

when she was 12 years old. McLellan had two older sisters. McLellan trained at the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and ...

.Rebecca Hossac
Obituary: Abigail McLellan
''The Guardian'', 18 October 2009 In 1987, she also attended

Cincinnati University The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,00 ...

on a scholarship. Later, she attended the Cite Internationale de arts studios in Paris, France. She exhibited at the National Portrait Exhibition at the

Royal Scottish Academy The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) is the country’s national academy of art. It promotes contemporary Scottish art. The Academy was founded in 1826 by eleven artists meeting in Edinburgh. Originally named the Scottish Academy, it became the ...

. In 1998, McLellan began to show signs of health issues while in Japan. She was later diagnosed with

multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...

. Despite the diagnosis, McLellan insisted on living her life in a similar manner to before she became ill: she walked up four flights of stairs to her studio for as long as she was able. When she could no longer stand, she worked in her studio from a wheelchair. She was known for still-life paintings consisting of "pared-down, almost abstracted, images of single plants, flowers, and other distinct items, set against richly-worked backgrounds of saturated colour" Matthew Sturgisbr>Obituary: Abigail McLellan
''The Independent'', 21 October 2009 and portraits, both bearing the strong influence of Japanese art. Scottish art traditions were also an important influence on her work. The process of creating her art involved a "detailed process" of building up multiple layers of acrylic paint on canvas. McLellan was considered a hard worker, and had been in her studio working the day that she had to be taken into hospital for the last time. She died there a week later. McLellan met her partner, painter Alasdair Wallace, at the Glasgow School of Art. After being together for eighteen years, they married in 2009. She died aged 40 the same year from complications of

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mclellan, Abigail 1969 births 2009 deaths 20th-century Scottish painters 20th-century Scottish women artists 21st-century Scottish painters 21st-century Scottish women artists Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art Deaths from multiple sclerosis Neurological disease deaths in Scotland People from Dumfries People from Middlesbrough Scottish women painters