A Brief History

I was born on 30 August 1936 and, looking back, it seems that I have been painting for most of my life.

I can clearly remember my first "public" success at around the age of six while attending primary school in Ottawa, Canada. I painted an ice skater racing across the ice, bonnet and scarf flying behind her. The teachers gathered around the picture, delighted by what they saw. It was only many years later that I realised my airborne skater had two knees on one leg.

Back in Britain, I completed my education, qualified as an architect, married Margaret, and together we raised four wonderful children. In 1968 we moved to East Lothian.

By 1989, with our children grown up and having left home, I took early retirement to paint full-time. Two years later, in 1991, three of my paintings were accepted for the Royal Scottish Academy Annual Open Exhibition. That achievement led to an invitation to hold my first solo exhibition.

More exhibitions followed, and over the next few years my work was regularly selected for the annual open exhibitions of both the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW).

Margaret died of cancer in 1995. Afterwards, I concentrated mainly on commissions, jazz-inspired subjects, and landscapes. Many of those landscapes were painted in Angus, where I frequently stayed with friends in a cottage at the foot of Glen Prosen. It was there that Captain Scott planned his South Pole expedition, a journey that was ultimately to end in tragedy.

I eventually married again, and Joan and I enjoyed several happy years together until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2011. Then, in 2020, at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, I began the series of works I now describe as "Pointillist" or "Scribbleist".

The series started with black pen drawings before evolving to coloured pens and, finally, the addition of aquarelle pencils, whose colours are activated with water. This way of working gave me the freedom to paint with Joan by my side while allowing me to stop whenever she needed my help as her condition gradually worsened. She has now been living in a care home for more than three years.

I would like to thank Robyn Wade of Dukes Fine Art Gallery for giving me the opportunity to exhibit these Covid works, together with a small selection of paintings from before and after that period. My thanks also go to Dr Judy Greenwood, whose encouragement and support provided the much-needed impetus to bring this exhibition to fruition.

I very much hope you enjoy the exhibition.

Glen Gibb