Robert MacBryde (5 December 1913
Early life and career
MacBryde was born in
Maybole,
Ayrshire, to John MacBryde, a cement labourer, and Agnes Kennedy MacBryde.
He worked in a factory for five years after leaving school before studying art at Glasgow School of Art from 1932 to 1937. There, he met
Robert Colquhoun, with whom he established a lifelong romantic relationship
and professional collaboration, the pair becoming known as "the two Roberts". MacBryde studied and travelled in
France and
Italy, assisted by
, returning to
London in 1939. He shared studio space with Colquhoun, and the pair shared a house with John Minton and, from 1943,
Jankel Adler. MacBryde held his first one-person exhibition at the
Lefevre Gallery in 1943.
Rise, decline and influences
At the height of their acclaim they courted a large circle of friends – including
Michael Ayrton, Francis Bacon,
Lucian Freud and John Minton as well as the writers
Fred Urquhart,
George Barker, Elizabeth Smart,
Frank Norman and
Dylan Thomas – and were renowned for their parties at their studio (77 Bedford Gardens).
Influenced by Graham Sutherland and John Piper, MacBryde became a well-known painter of the Modernism school of art, known for his brightly coloured Cubism studies. His later work evolved into a darker, Expressionism range of and Landscape art. In collaboration with Colquhoun, he created several set designs during and after the Second World War. These included sets for John Gielgud Macbeth, King Lear at Stratford and Massine's Scottish ballet Donald of the Burthens, produced by the Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden in 1951. During the 1950s, both MacBryde and Colquhoun lost the attention of the art scene due to the rise of Abstraction, and as both had become heavy drinkers, serious artistic work became almost impossible. Since neither had any private means, they were reduced at times to near destitution.
Last years and death
Colquhoun died suddenly in London in 1962. Soon afterwards MacBryde moved to
Ireland, where for a time he shared a house with
Patrick Kavanagh, with whom he had become friendly in London. However, he was still drinking heavily and seems to have made no serious effort to paint again.
The Times stated that MacBryde had disappeared into obscurity after Colquhoun's death.
Robert MacBryde died in 1966 in Dublin as a result of a street accident. Anthony Cronin, a friend of MacBryde and Colquhoun, describes them both with affection and respect in his memoir Dead as Doornails, as does the English painter, playwright and poet Arthur Berry in his autobiography A Three And Sevenpence Half Penny Man.
Further reading
External links
