Robin Rae recent paintings

27 April to 16 June 2013 in the Yard and Café galleries, ground floor. Click to view Wave Energy exhibition upstairs in Rope Gallery.

Sixty-four years ago Robin Rae had his first one-man exhibition in London. Many other shows have followed since; in Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Liverpool and of course Dorset.

He studied at the RCA and subsequently lectured at The Edinburgh College of Art and Liverpool College of art before coming to Bridport.

A lot of work has been discarded during an erratic career but the paintings that survive are truly exceptional. Understated, witty and breath-takingly well painted, they seem to form a kind of diary of Rae’s intelligent, imaginative and unusual inner life.

His main influences have been Stanley Spencer, Giacometti, Jacques, Villon, Morandi, and Balthus. At the age of 84 his enthusiasm and talent is undimmed. Like a lot of other artists he leaves his work to speak for him which it does in a most intriguing and eloquent manner.