Robert Macbryde and Robert Colquhoun: Artists, Lovers, Outsiders

An exhibition curated by award-winning writer Damian BarrThe Dick Institute is proud to host an exclusive new exhibition, on tour from Charleston, Lewes, celebrating the lives and work of the "Two Roberts" - Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, two Ayrshire artists who first met at Glasgow School of Art in 1933.

This infamous duo, both lovers and creative partners, played a vital role in mid-20th century British art influencing contemporaries including Bacon, Freud & Minton.Thanks to public response and passion for Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun’s work, over 100 works from the exhibition, many works never before seen by the public, have been brought together from across the UK and shown at the Dick Institute... a fitting homecoming for the Two Roberts.Curated by writer and broadcaster Damian Barr, this exhibition rescues the Two Roberts from the footnotes of history.

It foregrounds their shared creative practice, grounded in radical queer love, and celebrates an alternative tradition of modernist art by two queer, working-class Scottish artists.

It features paintings, drawings, lithographs, monoprints and archival objects, including school records and photographs, which trace and place their personal and artistic lives at the centre of an extraordinary creative landscape in a rapidly changing world.Damian Barr, curator and author of ‘The Two Roberts’ novel says:“Robert and Bobby were, briefly, two of the most famous artists in the world: photographed in Vogue, filmed by Ken Russell and collected by the Tate, among others.

Now they are almost forgotten and more remembered for their tragically short lives, if at all.

It has been a joy and a responsibility reappraising the work of this pioneering couple, once nicknamed ‘MacBraque and McPicasso’.

We have over 100 works in the show from delicate sketches to monumental oils and dancing ballet figures.

Each and every one screams of their talent and urges to look at these two men again, at the trail they blazed and the price they paid for it...

I am thrilled that the Two Roberts’ work will return to the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock, a proper homecoming for two lost sons of Ayrshire.”Take a look at this great footage from BBC ArtsBBC Arts - BBC Arts, Scottish Painters by Ken RussellCharleston