Hugh Adam Crawford, RSA, was born in Busby, Lanarkshire and studied at Glasgow School of Art between 1919 and 1923, then at art schools in London. He is most remembered for his ability to motivate and inspire as the teacher of artists such as Colquhoun, MacBryde, William Crosby and Joan Eardley. Crawford was Head of Drawing and Painting at Glasgow School of Art, Head of Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, and Principal of Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee. These roles made him one of the greatest influences on several generations of Scottish artists, although he never imposed his own vision on them but encouraged them to ‘kick away the props’ and explore their own ideas. Crawford was not only a teacher, however, with his own work continuing in the Glasgow tradition of representing reality. He painted portraits and murals commissioned for John Brown’s shipyard and Scottish Brewers Glasgow.