Anne Redpath R.S.A., R.W.A., A.R.A., O.B.E. (1895-1965)

Anne Redpath was born in the Scottish Borders town of Galashiels in 1895. She grew up in Hawick and was educated at the local High School, where the art master was John Gray, who latterly became President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. She later studied at Edinburgh College of Art under Robert Burns and Henry Lintott, before qualifying as an art teacher in 1917. Her talent as an artist was recognised at a young age and in 1919 she won a travelling scholarship which allowed her to spend the year visiting Bruges, Paris, Florence and Siena before returning to the Borders. The following year she married James Michie, an architect, and they went to live in Pas-de-Calais. In 1924 they moved to the South of France. During this time she painted rarely, concentrating on her role as mother to her three sons. In 1934 she returned to Hawick and started to paint prodigiously regularly exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Glasgow Institute and the Society of Scottish Artists. She was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1947 and was the first woman to be elected as a full member, in 1952. In 1955 she was awarded an OBE, the same year that she was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Edinburgh University. In the 1950s and early 1960s Redpath travelled in Europe, painting in Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, Corsica, Brittany, Venice and elsewhere.