Donald McIntyre RCA, RSMA

Scottish 1923 - 2009

Donald McIntyre spent his childhood in northwest Scotland. His early experiences of the Scottish landscape and the artists he encountered there seem to have influenced him throughout his life. McIntyre always returned to coastal scenes of the British Isles, particularly in Scotland and Wales, and he developed a palette and painterly approach based on the tradition of the Scottish Colourists and their followers, Cadell and Redpath among them.

Although McIntyre, a gifted natural draftsman, had painted from his youth he trained as a dentist. Yet while studying at the Glasgow Dental Hospital, he attended the evening classes at the nearby Glasgow School of Art. He later served in the army and became an Education Health Officer. At 40, McIntyre decided to pursue painting as a full time career.

Donald McIntyre had by then moved to North Wales but, as the Scottish Colourists did before him, spent most summers painting on Iona. He often made landscape studies in situ, finishing larger works back in his studio. Yet even the studio works maintained the essence of these sketches painted en plein air which gave his painting much of its character: lively, spontaneous but well considered, and created with an enthusiastic mastery of paint.