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Burns, Robert, ARSA (res.)

1869 – 1941

A native of Edinburgh Burns was educated at the Royal High School and the Dollar Institution. In the course of his art studies. he attended for short periods at South Kensington and studied also in Paris, as well as in the Royal Scottish Academy Life School. Subsequently he engaged in all kinds of decorative work, and he was teacher of colour for seven years in the School of Applied Art, the Mound. That appointment he resigned to devote himself exclusively to painting. He first exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy in 1893 and was elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1902. He was elected President of the Society of Scottish Artists in 1901, and became the first Head of Painting and Drawing in the Edinburgh College of Art when it opened in 1908. Although a very capable landscapist, Burns' real passion lay in design and he was one of the first to see, with the restriction in the demand for pictures. the possibilities of an extended application of artistic training and skill in the department of commerce and industry. He developed an enthusiasm for bringing artistic taste and creative faculty into the ordinary things of life. This led him to resign his Membership of the RSA and also to resign from his post at Edinburgh College of Art despite his undoubted abilities as an outstanding teacher. Notable amongst his decorative works was the major commission which he undertook for the interior decoration of Crawfords' tea rooms in Edinburgh. Emulating earlier Charles Rennie Mackintosh's work for Miss Cranstoun in her Glasgow tearooms, designing everything from waitresses' uniforms to menus to the wall decorations. He contributed art nouveau drawings to Patrick Geddes influential quarterly 'The Evergreen' in the late 1800s and provided numerous advertisements for Edinburgh businesses many of which appeared in the early exhibition catalogues of the Society of Scottish Artists. He also wrote and illustrated at least two books including one on Scottish Ballads which were finely printed in limited editions in the 1930s. Away from art, Burns was one of the earliest motorists in Scotland, taking part in some of the reliability trials, and was thoroughly conversant with all the mechanism of the early cars which he ran.



An image from the RSA collection.