Robert MacBryde (5 December 1913 – 6 May 1966) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

still-life and figure painter and a theatre

set designer Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly trained ...

Early life and career

MacBryde was born in

Maybole Maybole is a town and former burgh of barony and police burgh in South Ayrshire, Scotland. It had an estimated population of in . It is situated south of Ayr and southwest of Glasgow by the Glasgow and South Western Railway. The town is bypass ...

Ayrshire Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine and it borders the counties of Re ...

, to John MacBryde, a cement labourer, and Agnes Kennedy MacBryde. He worked in a factory for five years after leaving school before studying art at

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 ...

from 1932 to 1937. There, he met

Robert Colquhoun Robert Colquhoun (20 December 1914 – 20 September 1962) was a Scotland, Scottish Painting, painter, printmaker and theatre Scenic design, set designer. Colquhoun was born in Kilmarnock and was educated at Kilmarnock Academy. He won a s ...

, with whom he established a lifelong romantic relationship and professional collaboration, the pair becoming known as "the two Roberts". MacBryde studied and travelled in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, assisted by

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...

s, returning to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1939. He shared studio space with Colquhoun, and the pair shared a house with John Minton and, from 1943,

Jankel Adler Jankel Adler (born Jankiel Jakub Adler; 26 July 1895 – 25 April 1949) was a Polish Jewish painter and printmaking, printmaker. Biography Jankiel Jakub Adler was born as the seventh of ten children in Tuszyn, a suburb of Łódź. In 1912 he be ...

. MacBryde held his first one-person exhibition at the

Lefevre Gallery The Lefevre Gallery (or The Lefevre Galleries) was an art gallery in London, England, operated by Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd. The gallery was opened at 1a, King Street, St James's, in 1926, when rival art dealers Alexander Reid and Ernest Lefe ...

in 1943.

Rise, decline and influences

At the height of their acclaim they courted a large circle of friends - including

Michael Ayrton Michael Ayrton (20 February 1921 – 16 November 1975)T. G. Rosenthal, "Ayrton , Michael (1921–1975)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008accessed 24 Jan 2015/ref> was a British arti ...

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...

and John Minton as well as the writers

Fred Urquhart Frederick Albert Urquhart, (December 13, 1911 – November 3, 2002) was a Canadian zoologist and professor of zoology who studied the migration of monarch butterflies, ''Danaus plexippus'' L. Together with his wife, Norah Roden Urquhart, he ...

, George Barker,

Elizabeth Smart Elizabeth Ann Gilmour (née Smart; born November 3, 1987) is an American child safety activist and commentator for ABC News. She gained national attention at age 14 when she was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City by Brian David Mitchell. ...

, and

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...

- and were renowned for their parties at their studio (77 Bedford Gardens). Influenced by

Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking ...

and John Piper, MacBryde became a well-known painter of the

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

school of art, known for his brightly coloured

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

studies. His later work evolved into a darker,

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

range of

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

s and

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionar ...

. In collaboration with Colquhoun, he created several set designs during and after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. These included sets for Gielgud's ''

Macbeth ''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those w ...

'', ''

King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...

'' at Stratford and Massine's Scottish

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

''Donald of the Burthens'', produced by the

Sadler's Wells Ballet The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in ...

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

in 1951. During the 1950s, both MacBryde and Colquhoun lost the attention of the art scene, and as both had become heavy drinkers, serious artistic work became almost impossible. Since neither had any private means, they were reduced at times to near destitution.

Last years and death

Colquhoun died suddenly in London in 1962. Soon afterwards MacBryde moved to

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, where for a time he shared a house with

Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh (21 October 1904 – 30 November 1967) was an Irish poet and novelist. His best-known works include the novel '' Tarry Flynn'', and the poems "On Raglan Road" and "The Great Hunger". He is known for his accounts of Irish life t ...

, with whom he had become friendly in London. However, he was still drinking heavily and seems to have made no serious effort to paint again. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' stated that MacBryde had disappeared into obscurity after Colquhoun's death. Robert MacBryde died in 1966 in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

as a result of a street accident.

Anthony Cronin Anthony Gerard Richard Cronin (28 December 1923 – 27 December 2016) was an Irish poetry, Irish poet, arts activist, biographer, commentator, critic, editor and barrister. Early life and family Cronin was born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford on ...

, a friend of MacBryde and Colquhoun, describes them both with affection and respect in his memoir ''Dead as Doornails'', as does the English painter, playwright and poet Arthur Berry in his autobiography ''A Three And Sevenpence Half Penny Man''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Macbryde, Robert 1913 births 1966 deaths 20th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters Modern painters Scottish scenic designers Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art People from South Ayrshire People educated at Carrick Academy LGBT artists from the United Kingdom Alumni of Hospitalfield House Road incident deaths in the Republic of Ireland People from Maybole 20th-century LGBT people 20th-century Scottish male artists

Early life and career

Rise, decline and influences

Last years and death

References

Further reading

External links