Barbara Rae CBE, RA

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Biography

Barbara Rae CBE RA RE RSA RSW RGI FRCA FRSE, Royal Academician painter and printmaker, was born in Falkirk, Scotland. She trained at Edinburgh’s College of Art and for some years lectured at Charles Rennie Macintosh’s illustrious School of Art in Glasgow.
Recipient of numerous awards, scholarships, and honorary degrees, she arrived at art school her creative voice almost fully formed. No artists influenced her but she has her own favourites such as the Spanish Tàpies, and American Diebenkorn.
Considered an outstanding colourist, with portraits to her credit, an acclaimed master printmaker, her subject matter is usually images of socio-political history weathered by time and fortune: an ancient Celtic standing stone, a rickle of an Irish farmhouse fallen into disuse in famine wracked west of Ireland, ancient Anasazi rock art in the remotest parts of the Arizona desert, to sun blasted vines terraced on a Spanish hillside, any pattern and structure in the background a dividend enriching the composition.
Rae travels the world in search of inspiration, spending weeks meeting the people in her chosen location, researching local history, and surveying topography, all before opening her sketchbook; finally reworking the studies as prints or paintings in her Edinburgh studio.
Her work is exhibited in national museums, and public and private collections the world over, enjoyed by British charities and hospitals too. Solo exhibitions run from Edinburgh, often during the International Festival of Arts, to New York, from Dublin to Oslo, from Chicago to New Mexico, and to Mexico itself.
Definitive books on her work are: Barbara Rae – Major Work; Barbara Rae – Prints; and Barbara Rae – Sketchbooks. The last two books are published by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the first by Lund Humphries.

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024 Times and Places, MacLaurin Art Gallery Ayr, Scotland
2023 Colour Fields, Glasgow Print Studio, Glasgow, Scotland
2021 Barbara Rae at Peacock, Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, Scotland
2020 Crossing Borders, SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin, Ireland
2018 The Northwest Passage, The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture, Edinburgh, Scotland
2018 The Northwest Passage, Canada Gallery, Canada House, London, England
2016 Portland Gallery, London, England
2014 SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin, Ireland
2014 University of St Andrews, Glasgow, Scotland
2013 Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
2012 Richmond Hill Gallery, London, England
2010 Prints, Sir Hugh Casson Room, Royal Academy, London, England
2010 Celtic Connections Adam Gallery, London, England
2010 Royal Academy, London, England
2009 Vignettes from Ireland, Adam Gallery, London, England
2008 CCA Galleries, Surrey, England
2006 Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
2005 Jorgensen Fine Art, Edinburgh, Scotland

Group Exhibitions
2022 Glasgow Print Studio at 50: A Retrospective, Glasgow, Scotland
2022 A Sense of Place, Glasgow Print Studio, Glasgow, Scotland
2017 Editions – Best of British, Castlegate House Gallery, England
2017 Modern British Artists, Bircham Gallery, England
2016 New Work for Summer, Castlegate House Gallery, England