David McClure (artist)

David McClure
David McClure, Casteldaccia, Sicily 1956.
Born	David McClure (1926-02-20)20 February 1926 Lochwinnoch, Scotland
Died	20 February 1998(1998-02-20) (aged 72) Dundee, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Known for	Painting, drawing, printmaking
Signature

David McClure RSA RSW (20 February 1926 – 20 February 1998) was a Scottish artist and lecturer. He is most well known for his paintings of still lifes, interiors, figures and family portraits as well as his landscape and townscape paintings of Scotland, Italy, Sicily and Spain where he lived and travelled throughout his life.

Born in Lochwinnoch in 1926, McClure graduated in the early 1950s from Edinburgh College of Art. In his early career he spent significant periods working in Spain, Italy, Sicily and later Norway. He spent the majority of professional life in Dundee where he lived with his wife and family and taught at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art (now part of the University of Dundee) from 1958 and spent the last two years of his career there as head of painting, post he took over from his friend, colleague and fellow artist, Alberto Morrocco, before retiring in 1985.

McClure was born in Lochwinnoch in 1926 and attended Queens Park School in Glasgow. During the Second World War David served as a Bevin Boy in the mines of West Lothian. Some of his earliest known works depict these times; mining scenes and portraits of the miners themselves as well as surrealist and cubist landscapes depicting pitheads and bings, richly influenced by the works of Graham Sutherland. Previously he had been studying English and History at Glasgow University but his mining experiences seemed to have help determine that an already strong interest in the visual arts developed in a need to paint. On his father's side of the family were several generations of Lochwinnoch furniture designers and manufacturers; many of the great, Clyde-built liners were fitted out with Lochwinnoch furniture and decorative woodwork. His father, Robert, in his spare time was active in the local art society and went to drawing classes, even painting portraits of locals' prize pets or racing pigeons. David first enrolled in the Fine Art course at Edinburgh, his time divided between History of Art at Edinburgh University and Drawing and Painting at the Art College. Tellingly, after a year, he moved solely to the Art College and to painting.