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Curated by writer and broadcaster Damian Barr, this exhibition rescues the Two Roberts from the footnotes of history. It foregrounds their shared creative practice, grounded in radical queer love, and celebrates an alternative tradition of modernist art by two queer, working-class Scottish artists. It features paintings, drawings, lithographs, monoprints and archival objects, including school records and photographs, which trace and place their personal and artistic lives at the centre of an extraordinary creative landscape in a rapidly changing world.
Approximately 50 paintings tell the story of the pair’s time in Scotland, England, and Europe from the 1930s to the 1950s, and their engagement with the major art movements of the time – their nicknames were MacBraque and McPicasso. Paintings by teachers and contemporaries demonstrate the network of influence, artistic as well as personal, that shaped the artists’ lives and work, including works by Ian Fleming, John Minton, and Wilhemina Barns-Graham.
Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun: Artists, Lovers, Outsiders includes almost 30 works on paper which illustrate the artists’ contributions to the popularisation of lithography and monoprints and their design work for Léonide Massine’s 1951 ballet Donald of the Burthens. It includes intimate portraits the pair drew of themselves, and one another, as well as some works which have never previously been on public display.
To coincide with this exhibition, we are also staging The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside of You, 2013, a large-scale light work by Robert Montgomery in Gallery 4. This Scottish-born, London-based contemporary artist and poet is renowned for his light works using words and poetry installed in public spaces. As well as his evocative light poems, which use environmentally friendly LED lights, he is well known for his billboard poems, fire poems, woodcuts, paintings and watercolours.
Damian Barr, curator of the Roberts MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun: Artists, Lovers, Outsiders exhibition and author of ‘The Two Roberts’ novel says:
“Robert and Bobby were, briefly, two of the most famous artists in the world: photographed in Vogue, filmed by Ken Russell and collected by the Tate, among others. Now they are almost forgotten and more remembered for their tragically short lives, if at all. It has been a joy and a responsibility reappraising the work of this pioneering couple, once nicknamed ‘MacBraque and McPicasso’. We have over 100 works in the show from delicate sketches to monumental oils and dancing ballet figures. Each and every one screams of their talent and urges to look at these two men again, at the trail they blazed and the price they paid for it… I am thrilled that the Two Roberts’ work will return to the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock, a proper homecoming for two lost sons of Ayrshire.”
Standard admission applies.
Adults: £18 - pay once and visit all year
Children 15 years and under: FREE (max 3 per adult). Children must be accompanied by an adult.
| Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun: Artists, Lovers, Outsiders (2 May 2026 - 6 Sep 2026) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Day | Times | |
| Monday - Sunday | 10:00 | - 17:00 |
| Bank Holiday | 10:00 | - 17:00 |
* Last entry 4pm
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Robert Montgomery - The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside of YouTo coincide with the Artists, Lovers, Outsiders exhibition, we are presenting Montgomery’s light poem The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside of You, 2013.
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