British Council British Council Visual Arts

Robert Colquhoun was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland; he studied at Glasgow School of Art, where he met Robert MacBryde, a student in the same year. They formed an intimate and lifelong friendship of such mutual devotion it caused them to be known as the 'Two Roberts'. From the mid 1940s to the early 1950s he was considered one of the leading artists of his generation; he was also a prolific printmaker and produced a large number of lithographs and monotypes throughout his career. He made great use of 'transfer' lithography and an 'off-set' drawing process for monotypes. For both techniques a specially prepared carbon paper is used to transfer a drawn image onto a lithographic stone or plate for printing, or onto another piece of paper for monotype. He also made use of the more traditional monotype process of printing from inked surface, usually a glass or metal plate. In 1947 he moved to Lewes, East Sussex with Robert MacBryde and worked at the Miller's Press until 1949, under the patronage of Frances Byng Stamper and her sister, Caroline Lucas. The prints made there were shown in the first exhibition of the Society of London Painter-Printers mounted at the Redfern Gallery, London in 1948. A retrospective of his work was shown at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1958.

Further reading:
Robert Colquhoun catalogue of paintings, drawings and prints 1942-58, preface by Bryan Robertson, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 1958
Colquhoun and MacBryde - A Retrospective, introduction by John Griffiths, Glasgow Print Studio 1990