Robert MacBryde

[close] Robert MacBryde (1913–1966) was a Scottish still-life and figure painter and a theatre set designer.

MacBryde was born in Maybole and worked in a factory for 5 years after leaving school. He studied art at Glasgow School of Art from 1932 to 1937. There, he met Robert Colquhoun with whom he established a lifelong gay relationship and professional collaboration, the pair becoming known as "the two Roberts". MacBryde studied and travelled in France and Italy, assisted by scholarships, returning to London in 1939. He shared studio space with Colquhoun, and the pair shared a house with John Minton and, from 1943, Jankel Adler. MacBryde held his first one-person exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in 1943.

At the height of their acclaim they courted a large circle of friends - including Michael Ayrton, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and John Minton as well as the writers Fred Urquhart, George Barker, Elizabeth Smart, and Dylan Thomas - and were renowned for their parties at their studio at 77 Bedford Gardens.