Stronach, Ancell ARSA(Forfeit)
1901 – 1981
Stronach, a former winner of the RSA's Guthrie Award, was elected ARSA on 1934-03-21 alongside William Meryvn Glass (1885-1965), David Shanks Ewart (1901-65), James Harvey Clark (1886-1980) and Burnett N H Orphoot (1880-1964). In 1940 he resigned his post as Professor of Mural Painting at Glasgow School of Art and appears to have left Scotland sometime thereafter, exhibiting at the RSA in 1940 from Glasgow; 1945 from Birkenhead; 1948 from Prestatyn, 1951 from Flintshire and finally 1954 and 1956 from Brixton in London. An eccentric he was attracted to the circus and, abandoning Glasgow, he trained and managed a troupe of acrobatic birds known as Ancell's Painted Pigeons, which toured the provinces with his wife, a professional acrobat. His ARSA was withdrawn which probably accounts for the absence of any official obituary (or even passing reference to his death) in the RSA Annual Reports for 1981 and 1982.
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