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Murray, Dawson Robertson, ARE RSW RGI

1944 – 2022

Studied GSA and winner of an RSA Carnegie Travel Scholarship in 1966 which took him to Italy where he married fellow GSA graduate Liz Barnet at Palermo in 1967. Murray spent two years in Italy studying for part of this time at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. On returning to Scotland, Murray became an art teacher in the East end of Glasgow before being appointed Principal Teacher of Art at Boclair Academy in Bearsden. Amongst his students at Bearsden was professor Ross Sinclair RSA who credited Murray's presence there as probably the reason Sinclair achieved what he has achieved, the art department being well equipped and Murray open to encouraging experimentation and exploration across all media. During this time he was also responsible for inviting leading artistic figures to talk to the senior art students. Amongst these was Richard Demarco [HRSA] on whose Demarco Gallery board Murray had served in the 1970s alongside George Wyllie [RSA]. In 1975 Murray was elected a Member of the Glasgow Group. Murray was forced to retire from teaching in 1995 due to multiple sclerosis which ultimately confined him to a wheelchair and forced him to engage assistants to enable him to continue to create his art as his own speech and other motor functions became seriously impeded by his illness. He moved to Kilmany in Fife where he spent the remainder of his life drawing inspiration from his garden for his work. He had a particular fondness for aquatint and he personalised the ‘sugar-lift’ technique which allowed him to combine elements of both printmaking and watercolour painting. He applied the unlikely combination of syrup and gouache to a wet metal plate which was then covered with an acid-resistant varnish. The plate was then immersed in hot water causing the sugar solution to expand and break through the varnish. By such a process he painstakingly created imagery which was then inked and printed, although the plate was reworked many times to achieve the desired result.



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