Painter, printmaker, brought up in Scotland, full name John Ronald Craigie Aitchison. He adopted his father’s name when he became an artist. Studied at Slade School of Fine Art, 1952–4, having rejected law as a career. In 1955 he received a British Council and Italian government scholarship to study in Italy, where the different light and landscape made a marked impression on his work. Aitchison’s work took on a strong pastel colouring and he adopted a few simple shapes, such as a figure, a tree or a bird, which were to be his trademarks. His apparently simple pictures can be jokey or sad, but are always original. Had a series of shows at the Beaux Arts Gallery, 1959–64, also showing with LG, Compass Gallery in Glasgow, Knoedler & Co and abroad. Notable exhibitions were held at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, in 1979, and at the Serpentine Gallery in 1981, with a retrospective at Harewood House, Leeds, 1994, a major show at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, in 1996, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, 2001, with a further retrospective at RA, Out of the Ordinary, in 2003. Aitchison had been elected RA in 1988. Lived in London and Italy.