Barbara Balmer RSA (23 September 1929 – 31 December 2017) was a Scottish artist and teacher.

Biography

Balmer was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

and, between 1946 and 1951, studied art at Coventry School of Art and then at the

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

. A travelling scholarship enabled Balmer to further her studies in France and Spain during 1951 and 1952. She also visited Italy with a group led by Douglas Percy Bliss. From 1970 to 1980, Balmer was a visiting lecturer at

Gray's School of Art Gray's School of Art is the Robert Gordon University's art school, located in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is one of the oldest established fine art institutions in Scotland and one of Scotland's five art schools today, and ranked among the Top 20 ...

in Aberdeen. Seven of her paintings were adapted as dust jackets for editions in the

Virago A virago is a woman who demonstrates abundant masculine virtues. The word comes from the Latin word ''virāgō'' ( genitive virāginis) meaning vigorous' from ''vir'' meaning "man" or "man-like" (cf. virile and virtue) to which the suffix ''-ā ...

Modern Classics series. A large mural by Balmer is situated in

Cumbernauld Cumbernauld (; gd, Comar nan Allt, meeting of the streams) is a large town in the historic county of Dunbartonshire and council area of North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the tenth most-populous locality in Scotland and the most populated t ...

Town Hall. Balmer had a solo exhibition at the Aberdeen Art Gallery during 1995 and 1996. She was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Society of Scottish Artists and the

Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours (RSW) is a Scottish organisation of painters. The first preliminary meeting of the society took place in Glasgow on 21 December 1877 as a reaction to a lack of interest in watercolour art by ...

and also with the Glasgow Group and regularly at the Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh, where she had a solo show in 1970. Balmer's portrait of Demarco is in the

Scottish National Portrait Gallery The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. The gallery holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Co ...

and several other public galleries hold examples of her work. A retrospective exhibition of her work was held at the

Aberdeen Art Gallery Aberdeen Art Gallery is the main visual arts exhibition space in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1884 in a building designed by Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, with a sculpture court added in 1905. In 1900, it received the art ...

and toured to venues in Dundee, Lincoln and Coventry. Balmer lived and worked at various times in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and most recently in Stamford in Lincolnshire. A working visit to

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

was an annual event. She was married, for some 65 years, to the artist and designer George Mackie and the couple had two daughters.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Balmer, Barbara 1929 births 2017 deaths 20th-century Scottish painters 20th-century Scottish women artists 21st-century Scottish painters 21st-century Scottish women artists Academics of Robert Gordon University Alumni of Coventry School of Art and Design Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands Scottish women painters Royal Scottish Academicians 20th-century women painters 21st-century women painters