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The elder son of the Rev. Alexander [Allan] Sinclair and his wife Sarah Fraser, he was born at Kenmore, Perthshire. Alasdair, as he was generally called,attended classes at Aberdeen University without taking a degree, and an irresistible inclination towards an artistic career brought him to Edinburgh. Studying at the Trustees Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy Life School, he showed unmistakable abilities, and fellow-students James Cadenhead, RSA and J H Lorimer, RSA, were among his closest friends. He first exhibited at the Academy in 1883. He was primarily a landscapist, his subjects included Perthshire, Edinburgh, Iona, Holland, and France. He was also a portraitist. The most memorable are two of his mother, one of Lady Dunedin, 1909, another of his wife, 1910: a full length of his brother-in-law, Mr. J. H. Stevenson, Unicorn Pursuivant, and that of the late Colonel T. Cadell, V.C., of Cockenzie. Sinclair, was an original member of the Society of Scottish Artists, and also of the Society of Eight. He especially distinguished himself in oil painting and decoration, but he worked also in water colour, pastel, and black and white. Sinclair contributed 2 illustrations to 'A Beggar's Wallet' a fund-raising volume edited by Archibald Stodart Walker in 1905 to raise funds for the Royal Victoria Hospital for Consumption in Edinburgh at the Great International Fair there. He was Elected ARSA in 1918.