The work of Scottish artist Robert Cargill.
Robert Cargill was born in 1940 in Arbroath on the north east coast of Scotland into one of the oldest fishing families in the area. In 1963, he broke with that tradition and went to study painting at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee where he received a post graduate diploma and then lectured there for two years. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, he exhibited very successfully throughout the UK in many solo and group exhibitions before going on to show his work almost exclusively from his own gallery space at his home in Arbroath. In 1969, he won the Scottish Arts Council Award and in 1970, the Elizabeth Greenshields Award.
Throughout his career the artist was influenced by the area around where he lived. In his work, he paid homage to the coast where he had been born, the sea and his fishing heritage. He was also influenced by post war European art, especially the work of Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies in Spain and the Arte Povera Movement in Italy. In the late 1980s, he made several trips to Catalonia before finally moving from his hometown to base himself on the island of Mallorca where he continued to create and exhibit a large body of work.
The artist died suddenly in 2001, shortly after returning to Scotland.
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Robert Cargill 