Ian McKenzie Smith CBE PPRSA PPRSW LLD RGI

Date of RGI Election: 1999

Other memberships: RSA, RSW, SSA, AAS

Education:

Studied Grays School of Art Aberdeen 1953-58. Hospital field 1958 and 1959 and abroad.

Education officer Council of Industrial Design Glasgow 1963-68.

Director Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums 1968-1989. Aberdeen City Arts and Recreation Officer 1989-96. Secretary Royal Scottish Academy 1990-1998.

President Royal Scottish Academy 1998.

Born in Montrose, Ian McKenzie Smith (b. 1935) studied at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen and at Hospitalfield from 1953 to 1958. After a period of teaching he became Director of Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums in 1968.

Now retired he continues to live and paint in Aberdeen. His work, although based on landscape and other forms, is broadly abstract. As a young man he was influenced by the Danish, Dutch and Belgian artists of the COBRA Group that were active in the late 1940s and 1950s. Later he became interested in the philosophies Zen Buddhism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/ian-mckenzie-smith

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/rsascottishart/artistbios/smithi.asp