Barbara Rae RA, RSA

Barbara Rae CBE RA RSA

Barbara Rae CBE RA RSA is a Scottish painter and printmaker, born in Falkirk in 1943. Rae studied painting at the Edinburgh College of Art in the early sixties, whilst working as a grouse-beater in the Scottish Highlands. 'I loved being up there walking the hills, seeing the landscape, drawing it,' Rae said in 2013. 'Geography was really important to me and it still plays a huge role in my art.' In 1975, she became a lecturer in drawing and painting at the Glasgow School of Art, where she worked until 1996. During this time, Rae exhibited regularly and received many awards for her artwork. In 1992, she was elected a full member of the Royal Scottish Academy, president of the Society of Scottish Artists in 1983, and was appointed as a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland in 1995. Rae also became a Royal Academician in 1996, and was awarded a CBE in 1999.

The RA has described Rae's works as 'intense colour bursts that evoke dramatic landscapes but remain resolutely abstract', which 'distil the colour, light and forms of nature into dazzling visions'. The bright colours of her paintings and prints diverge from the darker tones typical of Scottish art.

Subject matter for her prints tend to the socio-political, her main interest in whatever has been shaped by the hand of man or woman, and weathered by age: an old Irish farmhouse, a door or fence gate, an ancient standing stone, a terrace of vines, with more of an interest in the culture than the topography of locations.

Rae's work is held by institutions including the University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, British Museum, and Whitworth Art Gallery.

Exhibitions at Gallagher & Turner:
101 Years of British Art
15 September - 21 October 2017

Bleed, Blend, Block Out, Burn - April 2022