Ronald Forbes (artist)

Ronald Forbes RSA, RGI (born 1947 in Braco, Perthshire, Scotland) is an artist who is primarily a painter but who has also made films throughout his career. He is an academician of the Royal Scottish Academy (elected Associate, 1996, Academician, 2005), was elected a Professional Member of the Society of Scottish Artists in 1971 and a member of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in 2013.

Forbes studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1964-1968, and was awarded an S.E.D postgraduate scholarship there from 1968-1969. He later studied education at Jordanhill College, Glasgow, from 1970-71.

After periods between 1969 and 1973 when he taught in the secondary and further education sectors, Forbes moved into teaching posts in art schools. He was Head of Painting in both Crawford School of Art, Cork (1974–78) and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee (1995-2001), where he also established and directed the Masters Course in Public Art and Design and the MFA Course from 1983-1995. He was a lecturer at Glasgow School of Art (1979-2003), and is Honorary Visiting Professor of Fine Art at the University of Abertay, Dundee, (2003–present).

He has also served on the boards of a range of trusts and arts charities including Hospitalfield Arts, Perthshire Public Arts Trust, Dundee Public Art Programme, Workshop and Artist Studio Provision Scotland (WASPS) and the Glasgow League of Artists.

Forbes’s art reflects the complex visual languages of modern life while referencing mythology and art history, and, as Dr Tom Normand wrote in "Portfolio: Treasures from the Diploma Collection of the Royal Scottish Academy", 2013, “his work has explored a philosophical discourse that speculates on the nature of reality.” Dr Peter Hill noted in his essay in "Ronald Forbes: (mind)games", 2005 that Forbes is regarded as one of Scotland’s leading figurative painters, while Dr Carol Gow, writing in Cencrastus issue 36, 1990, noted that Forbes prefers the term “imagist” rather than “figurative.”

Dennis Adrian, Chicago historian, critic and collector, wrote in Riddles and Puzzles: Paintings by Ronald Forbes,

There have been solo, group and curated exhibitions of Forbes’s work in Scotland, England, Ireland, USA, Australia, Japan, France and the Netherlands. His paintings are held in a range of public collections in the UK, Ireland, the USA, Poland and Australia. He has received many prizes, including the Guthrie Medal from the Royal Scottish Academy, and awards from bodies such as the Leverhulme Trust, the Carnegie Trust, the Scottish Arts Council and the Hope-Scott Trust.

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