71 Notable alumni of
Glasgow School of Art
Updated:
The Glasgow School of Art is 861st in the world, 302nd in Europe, and 59th in the United Kingdom by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 71 notable alumni from the Glasgow School of Art sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Robbie Coltrane
- Occupations
- film actorscreenwritertelevision actoractor
- Biography
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Anthony Robert McMillan, known professionally as Robbie Coltrane, was a Scottish actor. He gained worldwide recognition in the 2000s for playing Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter film series. He was appointed an OBE in the 2006 New Year Honours by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to drama. In 1990, Coltrane received the Evening Standard British Film Award – Peter Sellers Award for Comedy. In 2011, he was honoured for his "outstanding contribution" to film at the British Academy Scotland Awards.
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Peter Capaldi
- Enrolled in the Glasgow School of Art
- Graduated with graphic design
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directorexecutive producervoice actortelevision director
- Biography
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Peter Dougan Capaldi is a Scottish actor, director, singer and guitarist. He portrayed the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction series Doctor Who and Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, for which he received four British Academy Television Award nominations, winning Best Male Comedy Performance in 2010.
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Charles Rennie Mackintosh
- Occupations
- furniture designerinterior designergraphic artistarchitecthandicrafter
- Biography
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Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdonald, was influential on European design movements such as Art Nouveau and Secessionism and praised by great modernists such as Josef Hoffmann. Mackintosh was born in Glasgow, Scotland and died in London, England. He is among the most important figures of Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style).
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John Martyn
- Occupations
- singer-songwriterrecording artistguitaristsinger
- Biography
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Iain David McGeachy OBE, known professionally as John Martyn, was a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. Over a 40-year career, he released 23 studio albums and received frequent critical acclaim. The Times described him as "an electrifying guitarist and singer whose music blurred the boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and blues".
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Scott Hutchison
- Occupations
- songwritersinger-songwriterguitaristsinger
- Biography
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Scott John Hutchison was a Scottish singer, songwriter, guitarist and artist. He was the founding member and primary songwriter of the indie rock band Frightened Rabbit, with whom he recorded five studio albums, and created the artwork for each release.
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Alasdair Gray
- Occupations
- screenwritervisual artistpainterwriterscience fiction writer
- Biography
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Alasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.
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Fran Healy
- Occupations
- karatekamusiciancomposerguitaristpianist
- Biography
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Francis Healy is a British musician. He is the lead singer and lyricist of the band Travis, having written nearly all of the songs on their first six studio albums along with their ninth and tenth, with the seventh and eighth containing material written by other members of the band. Healy released his debut solo album, titled Wreckorder, in October 2010.
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Norman McLaren
- Enrolled in the Glasgow School of Art
- Studied scenic design
- Occupations
- animatorfilm directorproducerscreenwritercinematographer
- Biography
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William Norman McLaren, CC CQ LL. D. was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. McLaren was also an artist and printmaker, and explored his interest in dance in his films.
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Margaret MacDonald
- Occupations
- artistpaintervisual artist
- Biography
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Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh was a British artist who worked in Scotland, and whose design work became one of the defining features of the Glasgow Style during the 1890s to 1900s.
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David Shrigley
- Occupations
- photographerfilm directorsculptorpainterdraftsperson
- Biography
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David John Shrigley OBE is a British visual artist. He lived and worked in Glasgow, Scotland for 27 years before moving to Brighton, England in 2015. Shrigley first came to prominence in the 1990s for his distinct line drawings, which often deal with witty, surreal and darkly humorous subject matter and are rendered in a rough, almost childlike style. Alongside his illustration work, Shrigley is also a noted painter, sculptor, filmmaker and photographer, and has recorded spoken word albums of his writing and poetry.
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Muriel Gray
- Occupations
- journalistnovelistactor
- Biography
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Muriel Janet Gray FRSE is a Scottish author, broadcaster and journalist. She came to public notice as an interviewer on Channel 4's alternative pop-show The Tube, and then appeared as a regular presenter on BBC radio. Gray has written for Time Out, the Sunday Herald and The Guardian, among other publications, as well as publishing successful horror novels. She was the first woman to be Rector of the University of Edinburgh and is the first female chair of the board of governors at Glasgow School of Art.
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Frank Quitely
- Occupations
- comics artist
- Biography
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Vincent Patrick Deighan, better known by the pen name Frank Quitely, is a Scottish comic book artist. He is best known for his frequent collaborations with Grant Morrison on titles such as New X-Men, We3, All-Star Superman, and Batman and Robin, as well as his work with Mark Millar on The Authority and Jupiter's Legacy.
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Robert Hardy
- Occupations
- guitaristsingersongwriter
- Biography
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Robert Byron Hardy is an English musician and the bassist in the band Franz Ferdinand.
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Douglas Gordon
- Occupations
- painterfilmmakerprintmakerfilm directorvideo artist
- Biography
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Douglas Gordon is a Scottish artist. He won the Turner Prize in 1996, the Premio 2000 at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
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Christopher Pratt
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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John Christopher Pratt CC ONL RCA was one of Canada's most prominent painters and printmakers. In addition to a body of highly acclaimed paintings, prints, drawings and writing, he designed the flag of Newfoundland and Labrador.
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Peter Howson
- Enrolled in the Glasgow School of Art
- Studied in 1975-1976
- Occupations
- artistprintmakerpainter
- Biography
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Peter Howson OBE is a Scottish painter. He was a British official war artist in 1993 during the Bosnian War.
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Ian Hamilton Finlay
- Occupations
- horticulturistsculptorpoetillustratorvisual poet
- Biography
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Ian Hamilton Finlay CBE was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.
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Harry Benson
- Occupations
- photographerphotojournalistfashion photographer
- Biography
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Harry James Benson CBE is a Scottish photographer. His photographs of celebrities have been published in magazines. He has published several books and won a number of prominent awards.
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Liz Lochhead
- Occupations
- poetwriter
- Biography
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Liz Lochhead Hon FRSE is a Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. Between 2011 and 2016 she was the Makar, or National Poet of Scotland, and served as Poet Laureate for Glasgow between 2005 and 2011.
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Frances MacDonald
- Occupations
- painterdesignertextile artistillustrator
- Biography
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Frances MacDonald MacNair was a Scottish artist whose design work was a prominent feature of the Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) during the 1890s.
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Iain McCaig
- Occupations
- writerfilm directorillustrator
- Biography
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Iain McCaig is an American artist, writer, and filmmaker. He was involved in the Star Wars franchise and many other iconic film and book projects, including an album cover for Jethro Tull's Broadsword and the Beast.
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Alexander Stoddart
- Occupations
- sculptor
- Biography
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Alexander "Sandy" Stoddart FRSE is a Scottish sculptor, who, since 2008, has been the Queen's Sculptor in Ordinary in Scotland and is now the King's Sculptor in Ordinary. He works primarily on figurative sculpture in clay within the neoclassical tradition. Stoddart is best known for his civic monuments, including 10-foot (3.0 m) bronze statues of David Hume and Adam Smith, philosophers during the Scottish Enlightenment, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, and others of James Clerk Maxwell, William Henry Playfair and John Witherspoon. Stoddart says of his own motivation, "My great ambition is to do sculpture for Scotland", primarily through large civic monuments to figures from the country's past.
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Martin Docherty-Hughes
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Martin John Docherty-Hughes is a Scottish National Party politician. He was previously the Member of Parliament (MP) for West Dunbartonshire from 2015 until his defeat in 2024. He has also served as SNP Defence Spokesperson from 2023 to 2024.
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Jessie M. King
- Enrolled in the Glasgow School of Art
- Studied in 1894-1900
- Occupations
- designergraphic artistjewelry designeruniversity teacherpainter
- Biography
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Jessie Marion King was a Scottish illustrator known for her illustrated children's books. She also designed bookplates, jewellery and fabric, and painted pottery. King was one of the artists known as the Glasgow Girls. She was described in 1927 in the Aberdeen Press and Journal as "the pioneer of batik in Great Britain".
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Cathy Jamieson
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Catherine Mary Jamieson is a Scottish business director, currently a director at Kilmarnock Football Club and former politician. She served as the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland from 2000 to 2008. She previously served in the Scottish Executive as Minister for Justice from 2003 to 2007 and Minister for Education and Young People from 2001 to 2003. Jamieson was Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley from 1999 to 2011 and was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Kilmarnock and Loudoun from 2010 to 2015.
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Muirhead Bone
- Occupations
- paintergraphic artistetcherartist
- Biography
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Sir Muirhead Bone was a Scottish etcher and watercolourist who became known for his depiction of industrial and architectural subjects and his work as a war artist in both the First and Second World Wars.
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Herbert MacNair
- Occupations
- architectpainterdesignerartist
- Biography
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James Herbert McNair, was a Scottish artist, designer and teacher whose work contributed to the development of the Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) during the 1890s.
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Alexander Mann
- Occupations
- visual artistpainter
- Biography
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Alexander Mann was a Scottish landscape and genre painter. He was a member of New English Art Club and Royal Institute of Oil Painters.
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Alfred East
- Occupations
- graphic artistpaintervisual artist
- Biography
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Sir Alfred Edward East, RA, RBA was an English painter.
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George Henry
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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George Henry RA was a Scottish painter, one of the most prominent of the Glasgow School.
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Norah Neilson Gray
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Norah Neilson Gray was a Scottish artist of the Glasgow School. She first exhibited at the Royal Academy while still a student and then showed works regularly at the Paris Salon and with the Royal Academy of Scotland. She was a member of The Glasgow Girls whose paintings were exhibited in Kirkcudbright during July and August 2010.
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James Paterson
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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James Paterson PRSW RSA RWS, was a Scottish landscape and portrait painter associated with The Glasgow Boys movement of artists. He is best known for his landscape paintings of Dumfriesshire, where he lived, at Moniaive from 1885 to 1905.
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Elizabeth MacNicol
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Elizabeth MacNicol was a Scottish painter and member of the Glasgow Girls group of artists affiliated with the Glasgow School of artists.
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David Young Cameron
- Occupations
- printmakerpainter
- Biography
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Sir David Young Cameron RA was a Scottish painter and, with greater success, etcher, mostly of townscapes and landscapes in both cases. He was a leading figure in the final decades of the Etching Revival.
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Ross Sinclair
- Occupations
- performance artistartist
- Biography
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Professor Ross Sinclair is a Scottish visual artist, musician and writer. He lives and works in Kilcreggan, Argyll and is currently Reader in Contemporary Art Practice at The Glasgow School of Art, whilst also maintaining his professional practice. Sinclair was one of the key figures in the movement of contemporary artists in Glasgow in the 1990s, dubbed the 'Glasgow Miracle' by art curator and critic Hans-Ulrich Obrist.
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Edward Arthur Walton
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Edward Arthur Walton RI was a Scottish painter of landscapes and portraits, associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
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Franklin Azzi
- Occupations
- interior designerarchitect
- Biography
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Franklin Azzi, is a French architect. He is a graduate from the École Spéciale d'Architecture, and the Glasgow School of Art. He is the founder of Franklin Azzi Architecture, an agency based in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris.
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Francis Dodd
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Francis Edgar Dodd RA was a British portrait painter, landscape artist and printmaker.
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Karla Black
- Occupations
- installation artistsculptor
- Biography
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Karla Black is a Scottish sculptor who creates abstract three-dimensional artworks that explore the physicality of materials as a way of understanding and communicating the world around us.
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Ewan Morrison
- Occupations
- writerscreenwriterdirector
- Biography
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Ewan Morrison is a Scottish author, cultural critic, director, and screenwriter. He has published eight novels and a collection of short stories, as of 2021. His novel Nina X won the Saltire Society Literary Award for Fiction Book of the Year 2019. Literary critic Stuart Kelly described Morrison as "the most fluent and intelligent writer of his generation here in Scotland".
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Jessie Newbery
- Occupations
- embroidererdesigner
- Biography
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Jessie Newbery was a Scottish artist and embroiderer. She was one of the artists known as the Glasgow Girls. Newbery also created the Department of Embroidery at the Glasgow School of Art where she was able to establish needlework as a form of unique artistic design. She married the director of the Glasgow School of Art, Francis Newbery, in 1889.
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Nick Ede
- Years
- 1974-.. (age 51)
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
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Nick Ede is a Scottish public relations, popular culture expert and television presenter. He runs the London-based PR agency East of Eden and he lives in Hackney.
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Harrington Mann
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Harrington Mann was a Scottish portrait artist and decorative painter. He was a member of the Glasgow Boys movement in the 1880s.
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David Murray
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Sir David Murray RA was a Scottish landscape painter.
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James Nairn
- Enrolled in the Glasgow School of Art
- Studied in 1879
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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James McLauchlan Nairn was a New Zealand painter who (along with G. P. Nerli) strongly influenced New Zealand painting in the late 19th century. He believed in en plein air or painting outdoors.
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Richard Learoyd
- Occupations
- photographer
- Biography
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Richard Learoyd is a British contemporary artist and photographer.
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James Kay
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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James Kay was a Scottish artist notable for his paintings of the landscapes and shipping around the River Clyde. Born on the Isle of Arran, Kay spent much of his working life with a studio in Glasgow and living at Portincaple on Loch Long in Argyll and Bute. He was elected to the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW) in 1906 and to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1938. He had one daughter, artist Violet McNeish Kay.
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Gareth Hoskins
- Occupations
- architect
- Biography
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Gareth Dale Hoskins OBE was a Scottish architect.
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Thomas Corsan Morton
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Thomas Corsan Morton was a Scottish artist, known as one of the Glasgow Boys.
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Ciara Phillips
- Years
- 20th Century
- Occupations
- installation artist
- Biography
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Ciara Phillips is a Canadian-Irish artist based primarily in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Phillips was born in Ottawa, Canada. Her higher education was completed, first, at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada (Bachelor of Fine Art — 1996/2000). Subsequently, she studied at the Glasgow School of Art, obtaining a Master in Fine Art (2002/2004). Her work exploits the traditional use of printmaking practices, taking much influence from collaboration and, more personally, the philosophies of artist and teacher Corita Kent. On 7 May 2014, she was nominated for the Turner Prize for her work at The Showroom in London, England.
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Katherine Cameron
- Occupations
- painterartist
- Biography
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Katharine Cameron RWS RE was a Scottish artist, watercolourist, and printmaker, best known for her paintings and etchings of flowers. She was associated with the group of artists known as the Glasgow Girls.
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John Tweed
- Occupations
- sculptor
- Biography
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John Tweed was a Scottish sculptor.
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Gerard M. Burns
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Gerard M. Burns is a Scottish painter and musician. One of Scotland’s best known portrait artists, Burns has been heralded as one of the country’s leading artists of the human condition, playing a pivotal role in promoting the genre.
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Kate Robinson
- Occupations
- sculptor
- Biography
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Kate Robinson is a sculptor and writer.
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David Gauld
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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David Gauld was an important Scottish artist who worked in both oils and stained glass and was regarded as being one of the innovators within the Glasgow Boys group. Some of his works, such as St Agnes and Music are seen as precursors of the Art Nouveau movement. His works were seen as having both a Japanese and Pre-Raphaelite influence upon them.
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Abram Belskie
- Occupations
- paintersculptor
- Biography
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Abram Belskie was a British-born sculptor who did his best-known work in the US. He is known for his 1939 collaboration with Robert Latou Dickinson on the Dickinson-Belskie Birth Series Sculptures.
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Michelle de Bruin
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Michelle de Bruin is a British sculptor and artist, working primarily in stone. She has been based in the Scottish Borders since 1993.
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Helen Paxton Brown
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Helen Paxton Brown also known as "Nell", was an artist associated with the Glasgow Girls. Born in Hillhead, Glasgow to a Scottish father and English mother and she spent most of her life in Glasgow. Best known for her painting and embroidering she also worked in a range of mediums such as leather, book binding and also painted china.
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Moira Gemmill
- Occupations
- curator
- Biography
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Moira Gemmill was head of design and exhibitions at the Museum of London and director of design at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2002 until early 2015. She had recently been appointed to the job of director of capital programmes at the Royal Collection Trust. Gemmill died after being in a collision with a lorry at the Millbank roundabout, near Lambeth Bridge, while cycling from her home at Kennington to her job at St James's Palace.
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Janet Aitken
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Janet Macdonald Aitken CBE was a Scottish portrait and landscape painter. She was described by Jude Burkhauser as "one of the leading women proponents of the Glasgow Style."
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Elsa Stansfield
- Occupations
- photographerdraftspersonvisual artistuniversity teachervideo installation artist
- Biography
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Elsa Stansfield was a Scottish artist, known for her video art and installations. She was born in Glasgow on 12 March 1945, and died in Amsterdam in 2004.
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Ancell Stronach
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Ancell Stronach was a Scottish artist born in Dundee.
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Alexander Akerbladh
- Occupations
- draftspersonpaintercomics artistgraphic artist
- Biography
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Alexander Akerbladh (25 April 1886 – 1958) was a Swedish-born comics artist who drew for the Amalgamated Press in the UK from the 1900s to the 1950s. Born in Sundsvall, Sweden on 25 April 1886, he studied architecture at Glasgow School of Art, and became an apprentice to Sir John James Burnet for seven years, before studying art at the St John's Wood Art School in London under Leonard Walker, and in Munich under Anton Binder in 1916. He painted interiors and figures in oils and watercolours.
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Jessie Keppie
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
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Jessie Keppie was an artist from Glasgow, Scotland, described as one of the "leading women proponents of the Glasgow Style".
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Willie Miller
- Occupations
- landscape architecturban planner
- Biography
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Willie Miller was a designer and urbanist based in Glasgow, Scotland. He was Principal of Willie Miller Urban Design (WMUD), a design practice based in the West End of Glasgow. Miller studied at Glasgow School of Art, then at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and The Built Environment in Aberdeen, and was assistant director of Planning at Monklands District Council, prior to establishing WMUD in 1996. He died in January 2021 at the age of 70.
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Theodore Fyfe
- Occupations
- architect
- Biography
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David Theodore Fyfe, known simply as Theodore Fyfe, was a Scottish architect. He is widely known as Arthur Evans’s architect during the first five excavations at the Palace of Knossos from 1900 to 1904.
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Agnes Middleton Raeburn
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Agnes Middleton Raeburn was a Scottish member of the informal group of artists known as "The Immortals".
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James Hoey Craigie
- Occupations
- architect
- Biography
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James Hoey Craigie TD FRIBA was a Scottish architect. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art. In 1894 he won the Alexander Thomson travelling scholarship which he spent in France and Italy. In 1905 he was made a partner in the firm Clarke & Bell, its name changing to Clarke & Bell & J H Craigie.
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Homa Vafaie Farley
- Born in
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Iran - Occupations
- ceramicistpotter
- Biography
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Homa Vafaie Farley is an Iranian-born potter and ceramics designer. She lives in Abu Dhabi.
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Sandy Smith
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
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Sandy Smith is a Scottish visual artist based in New York City.
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Niall Macdonald
- Occupations
- contemporary artist
- Biography
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Niall Macdonald is a Scottish visual artist. He graduated in 2008 from the Glasgow School of Art.
