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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.

The Work

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,

"Ronald Forbes is a metaphysical painter out of the necessities of his own perceptions. His metaphysical qualities are those which can be found in much modern and older art; a sensibility which evidences an unshakeable conviction that the full perception and comprehension of our experience are not and cannot be achieved through logic alone and that there are other forms of knowledge to which we have access in art through images and symbols as well as the forms and colors which manifest them.

In Forbes’s painting, this sort of awareness (logical thought plus perceptual awareness) is a disrupted state in which no one single structural system or vocabulary of images has primacy. Accordingly, Forbes’s imagery seems never to be presented through a consistent and uniform language of form and image, but usually presents several such systems simultaneously within a "single" composition. The result has been called collage-like."

Professional activity

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.

His films have been shown in many exhibitions and have been part of the official selection for film festivals including Glasgow Short Film Festival, Abstracta Film Festival, Rome, Italy Lucerne International Film Festival, Switzerland and Skepto Film Festival, Cagliari, Italy.

Throughout his career, Forbes has fulfilled a number of artist residencies in Scotland, The Netherlands and Australia, including the Leverhulme Senior Art Fellowship at the University of Strathclyde, 1973–74, Artist in Residence in Livingston New Town, 1978–80, the Scottish Arts Council Amsterdam Studio Award 1980, Artist in Residence at the University of Tasmania Art School, Hobart, Australia in 1995, and the Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence at the Scottish Crop Research Institute (now the James Hutton Institute) 2006–08.

Forbes has been curator of a number of exhibitions such as ‘Focus on Film’ at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland in 2014 and the Celtic Connections Festival Visual Art Exhibition, Glasgow, Scotland in 1994 and 1995. He has also been founder and organiser of artists groups including the Glasgow League of Artists in 1971.

Solo exhibitions

Curated exhibitions

2018 From the Sublime to the Concrete
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, curated by Derrick Guild

2018 Under the Goldie Fish: Views of Cork from the Collection
Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland.

2017-18 Music, Myth and Magic
Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland, work from the permanent collection

2016-2018 A Sense of Place
McManus, Dundee’s City Art Gallery and Museum, work from the permanent collection

2010-15 RSA Annual Exhibition Curated Section:
2015 Realised, curator Alan Robb
2014 Focus on Film, curator Ronald Forbes
2010 The Expressive Artist and Social Involvement curator Ian McCulloch
2014 Life Cycles: John Grant Clifford, Ronnie Forbes, Alastair Ross

2014 Life Cycles: John Grant Clifford, Ronnie Forbes, Alastair Ross
Tatha Gallery, Newport-on-Tay

2006 Parallel Paths, Doug Cocker and Ronald Forbes
The drawing and development processes of each artist.
Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

2002 Nature: Only and Idea, Ronald Forbes, Nicole Hardy and Jannel:
Galerie Trace, Maastricht, Netherlands

1983 Netherlands and Belgium Touring Exhibition, Ronald Forbes, John Nelson and Cameron Shaw,
British Council/Culturele Raad Limburg
Hoensbruck, Roermond, Maastricht and Liege

1978-79 Scottish Arts Council Touring Exhibition, Ronald Forbes and Alan Robb:
1979 Aberdeen Art Gallery
1978 Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh
1978 Collins Gallery, Glasgow
1978 Arts Council Gallery, Belfast

Prizes and awards

2021 Sir William Gillies Bequest Award, Royal Scottish Academy
2019 Scottish Arts Club Award, RSA Annual Exhibition
2014 Dundee Visual Artists Award Scheme award
2012 Award of Merit, Lucerne International Film Festival for "Joking Apart"
2009 Publication award, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
2009 Dundee Visual Artists Award Scheme award
2006 Leverhulme Artist in Residence Award at SCRI
2002 Publication award, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
2001 Shortlisted for Rootstein-Hopkins Major Sabbatical Award
1999 Sir William Gillies Bequest Award, Royal Scottish Academy
1996 Highland Society of London Award, Royal Scottish Academy
1994 Commendation, Aberdeen Artists Exhibition
1990 Hope Scott Trust Award
1980 S.A.C. Amsterdam Studio Award
1979 Scottish Arts Council Award for Film-making
1979 R.S.A. Guthrie Award, Royal Scottish Academy
1975 Prize for film, "Between Dreams" in BBC "Scope" Film Competition
1968 Prize in Scottish Young Contemporaries Exhibition
1967 1st prize in first Scottish Young Contemporaries Exhibition
1964–69 Numerous awards and prizes at Edinburgh College of Art

Further reading

• Tom Normand (2021). A Blind Man’s Dreams: The Paintings and Films of Ronald Forbes. Thinking Eye Ideas. Hard back. 144 PP. 230x230 mm. 214 colour illustrations. ISBN 978-0-9515989-8-6.

References

1. ^ "Debrett's People of Today Profile". Debrett's People of Today. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
2. ^ Normand, Tom (2013). Portfolio : treasures from the Diploma Collection at the Royal Scottish Academy. Edinburgh: Luath. pp. 112–113. ISBN 978-1-908373-52-6.
3. "SSA". Society of Scottish Artists (SSA). 23 February 2021.
4. "RGI". Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts. (RGI).
5. ^ "Archives and Collections, The Glasgow School of Art". Summary of the origins and work of the Glasgow League of Artists 1971–1981 in The Glasgow School of Art Archives. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
6. Ellis, Anne (2006). "Through the Windows of the Mind". Uptown (June/July). ISSN 1741-7554.
7. Hill, Peter (2005). "Ronald Forbes : (mind)games". Dundee: University of Abertay Dundee. ISBN 9781899796151.
8. Gow, Carol (1990). "Conversation Piece". Cencrastus (36, Spring): 20–23. ISSN 0264-0856. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
9. Adrian, Dennis (2002). Ronald Forbes : riddles and puzzles : paintings. Edinburgh: Thinking Eye Ideas. ISBN 978-0-9515989-6-2.
10. Smith, W. Gordon (29 April 1990). "Omnipotent Images of Dereliction and Duty". Observer (London) Scotland, Available to view at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.
11. Carr, Richard (1 May 1990). "Exhibition of paintings where all is not what it seems to be". Arts: The Scotsman, (Edinburgh), Available to view at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. p. 15.
12. Henry, Clare (6 May 1996). "Out to unravel reality with visual trickery". The Herald, (Glasgow). p. 15. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
13. Wilson, Laura (11 March 2009). "The Nature of Things". The Courier and Advertiser, (Dundee), Available to view at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. p. 7.
14. "Lord Mayor urges purchase of pictures". Cork Examiner, Available to view at Cork County Library. 18 April 1978. p. 13.
15. "Meditatieve Kunst a quatre mains". Limburgs Dagblad. (Limburg, Netherlands). 8 June 2002.
16. 11 artworks by or after Ronald Forbes, Art UK. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
17. "Crawford Art Gallery". Paintings Ronald Forbes. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
18. "Biography". Retrieved 7 September 2015.
19. ^ "Scottish Crop Research Institute Archive, now the James Hutton Institute". Leverhulme Artist in Residence.
20. "Glasgow Short Film Festival (GSFF)". The Programme Catalogue of the 8th edition of Glasgow Short Film Festival, 2015. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
21. "Abstracta Film Festival, Rome". The Programme of the Abstracta Cinema and Videoart Work Exhibition, Rome 2013. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
22. "The Skepto International Film Festival, Cagliari, 2015". The Skepto International Film Festival. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
23. Shaw, Ann (12 January 1980). "Cultural transplant to give a town new heart". This is a feature interview on the work of Ronald Forbes as Artist in Residence in Livingston New Town, Available to view at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh: Glasgow Herald.
24. "University of Tasmania Library". This is an audio recording of a lecture given by Ronald Forbes in the University of Tasmania Art School, Hobart,1995, with an introduction by Dr Peter Hill. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
25. Wilson, Laura (11 March 2009). "The Nature of Things". The Courier and Advertiser (Dundee), Available to view at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. p. 7.
26. "video interview of Ronald Forbes for Summerhall TV". RSA Focus on Film. 28 April 2014. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
27. Normand, Tom (1994). Celtic Connections: visual arts exhibition. Glasgow: Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. ISBN 9780951598917.
28. ^ "Biography, Exhibitions and Listings".

• 1947 births
• Living people
• Royal Scottish Academicians
• Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art
• 20th-century Scottish painters
• Scottish male painters
• 21st-century Scottish painters
• 21st-century Scottish male artists
• 20th-century Scottish male artists
• Guthrie Award winners
• Academics of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design