Robin Rae recent paintings fills the Yard Gallery and Cafe on the ground floor at Sladers Yard until 16 June.
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 his 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.
In a cottage in Bradpole, near Bridport in Dorset, artist Robin Rae has been quietly painting his exceptional pictures, hidden from the art world which embraced him enthusiastically in his youth. He is quoted in The Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945 by David Buckman as, ‘painting more at present than at any other time but avoids the art world and glad to be quite out of touch.’ Now, in his eighty-fourth year, Robin has been able to fill the extensive ground floor of Sladers Yard with works all painted in the last couple of years.
