Ronald Forbes RSA, RGI (born 1947 in Braco, Perthshire, Scotland) is an artist who is primarily a painter but who has also made films throughout his career. He is an academician of the Royal Scottish Academy, a Professional Member of the Society of Scottish Artists and an elected member of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. Forbes studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1964–1968, and was awarded an S.E.D postgraduate scholarship there from 1968–1969. He later studied education at Jordanhill College, Glasgow, from 1970–1971. There have been solo, group and curated exhibitions of Forbes’s work in Scotland, England, Ireland, USA, Australia, Japan, France and the Netherlands. His paintings are held in a range of public collections in the UK, Ireland, the USA, Poland and Australia.
His films have been shown in many exhibitions and have been part of the official selection for film festivals including Glasgow Short Film Festival, Abstracta Film Festival, Rome, Italy Lucerne International Film Festival, Switzerland, Skepto Film Festival, Cagliari, Italy, Alchemy, Hawick, Scotland, Cutting Edge, (internet), USA, Oaxaca International Film Festival, Mexico, Cuzco Underground Film Festival, Peru, Allsorts Film Festival, Glasgow.
Throughout his career, Forbes has fulfilled a number of artist residencies in Scotland, The Netherlands and Australia, including the Leverhulme Senior Art Fellowship at the University of Strathclyde, 1973–1974, Artist in Residence in Livingston New Town, 1978–1980, the Scottish Arts Council Amsterdam Studio Award 1980, Artist in Residence at the University of Tasmania Art School, Hobart, Australia in 1995, and the Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence at the Scottish Crop Research Institute (now the James Hutton Institute) 2006–2008.
Forbes has been curator of a number of exhibitions such as ‘Focus on Film’ at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland in 2014 and the Celtic Connections Festival Visual Art Exhibition, Glasgow, Scotland in 1994 and 1995. He has also been founder and organiser of artists groups including the Glasgow League of Artists in 1971.
Forbes has had a distinguished career in higher art education. He was Head of Painting in both Crawford School of Art, Cork (1974–1978) and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee (1995–2001), where he also established and directed the Masters Course in Public Art and Design and the MFA Course from 1983–1995. He was a lecturer at Glasgow School of Art (1979–2003), and is Honorary Visiting Professor of Fine Art at the University of Abertay, Dundee, (2003–present).
He has also served on the boards of a range of trusts and arts charities including Hospitalfield Arts, Perthshire Public Arts Trust, Dundee Public Art Programme, Workshop and Artist Studio Provision Scotland (WASPS) and the Glasgow League of Artists.
Text source: the artist
