Patricia Frances Semple (3 July 1939 – 2 May 2021) was a Scottish landscape artist and teacher, known for a ' dramatic and visionary style'

Early life

Pat Semple was born in

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, char ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, but her parents soon moved back to

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, where she spent the rest of her life. Her father was in the merchant navy, away at sea much of the time, and her mother spent periods in a nursing home, succumbing to tuberculosis when Semple was 11 years old. Semple spent most of her childhood with her paternal grandmother, Marion Semple, in a small seaside cottage on

Saddell Bay Saddell Bay is an embayment along the eastern side of the Kintyre Peninsula of Scotland. Saddell Bay is an element of Kilbrannan Sound that separates the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran. Other bays along the east side of the Kintyre Pen ...

, Kintyre. She first attended the village school at Saddell, followed by St Margaret's Convent, Edinburgh and Lasswade Secondary School. In 1958, she studied painting and drawing at the Edinburgh College of Art, alongside artists

John Bellany John Bellany (18 June 1942 – 28 August 2013) was a Scottish painter. Early life Bellany was born in Port Seton. His father and grandfather were fishermen in Port Seton and Eyemouth near Edinburgh. During the early 1960s, he studied at ...

and

Barbara Rae Barbara Davis Rae CBE RA FRSE (born 10 December 1943) is a Scottish painter and printmaker. She is a member of the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy of Arts. Biography Rae studied painting at the Edinburgh College of Art from 1961 ...

. Her teachers included John Maxwell, Anne Redpath, Robin Phillipson,

Denis Peploe Denis Frederic Neal Peploe (25 March 1914 – 22 May 1993) was a Scottish artist and sculptor known for his landscapes. Biography Peploe was born in Edinburgh as the younger son of Margaret and Samuel John Peploe. His father was an artist and D ...

and Derek Clarke.

Career

Semple started her teaching career in 1964 with a job at her old school. By 1980 she was exhibiting paintings and drawings in galleries in

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

and

Tain Tain ( Gaelic: ''Baile Dhubhthaich'') is a royal burgh and parish in the County of Ross, in the Highlands of Scotland. Etymology The name derives from the nearby River Tain, the name of which comes from an Indo-European root meaning 'flow'. The ...

. She was elected a member of the Scottish Society of Artists and of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours. She focused on landscapes and seascapes of the Scottish Highlands. She worked in watercolour and oils, and was represented by Brown's Gallery in Tain and the Lost Gallery in Strathdon. Her work is included in the collections of the

Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the ...

, as well as in private collections around the world.

Personal life

In 1973 Semple married sculptor Frank Pottinger, whom she had met in college. They moved to Torphins, and later to Strathdon, divorcing in 1989. She moved to Tain in the 1990s, where she met again Derek Clarke, her former teacher, now a widower with three children. They married in 1992, and although they later lived separately, are said to have remained friends, and when he died in 2014, Semple collected his MBE for services to art, granted by the Queen at Holyrood.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Semple, Pat 1939 births 2021 deaths 20th-century British women artists 21st-century British women artists Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art People from Bromley Scottish artists Scottish landscape painters Landscape artists