Obituary - Barbara Balmer. Artist

In 1963 I founded and directed The Traverse Theatre Art Gallery in Edinburgh and suggested to Barbara that I should present a solo exhibition of her paintings in 1964. This resulted in two of her paintings forming the beginnings of the art collection established by my wife, Anne, and myself in support of the Traverse Gallery.

The Traverse Gallery provided a new concept of an international gallery dedicated to helping the process of internationalising the contemporary Scottish art world and Barbara Balmer was well placed to help with this process. She was particularly inspired by the tradition of art making in Italy from the Renaissance period (with special reference to artists as Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico and Giotto di Bandone) to the 20th century with particular reference to the work of Giorgio Morandi.

Barbara was the only child of loving parents and lived her early years in the Midlands of England. She won a scholarship which took her from Coventry School of Art to Edinburgh College of Art in the post-war years.

She met her future husband George Mackie as an ex-serviceman when he was teaching part-time at Edinburgh College of Art and she was beginning her postgraduate studies.

I first knew them as engaging personalities and regarded them both as role models as I began my studies at Edinburgh College of Art. They personified a highly professional attitude to the making of art and their work ethic placed them apart from their fellow students.

Edinburgh lost their vitally important physical presence when they moved to Aberdeen. George was appointed head of the Design School of Gray's School of Art and the first Royal Designer for Industry in Scotland. Barbara, through her undoubted extraordinary skills as a painter, was eventually employed as a tutor, teaching in the Gray's School of Painting.

Last August I made a point of focusing attention on a particular Barbara Balmer painting in the Demarco Archive collection during the programme I devised at Summerhall at the Edinburgh Festival. The subject matter of the painting was a classic still life of flowers contained in a vase, made as evidence of Barbara's love of the natural world. It revealed her instantly recognisable manner of mark-making. In this small painting, you can see clearly her love of the physical act of applying watercolour paint to paper.

I was delighted when Barbara suggested she should paint my portrait. The hours I spent in her studio, sitting for that portrait, enabled me to observe her highly professional and meticulous way of working. I was full of respect and admiration for the physical reality of her studio on the upper floor of an historic house in Broad Street in the Lincolnshire town of Stamford. In 1980, she and her husband had moved from Aberdeen to Stamford. There she found ample inspiration in Lincolnshire's architecture and landscape.

The death of Barbara Balmer has caused The Royal Scottish Academy to lose one of its most important senior academicians who contributed greatly to the academy’s annual exhibitions over a long and illustrious career. Her husband, together with the families of their two daughters, Rachel and Ruth, including grand-daughters and great-grandchildren, must surely be grateful for the many years in which their lives were graced with Barbara's joie de vivre.

Her unswerving devotion to her art resulted in paintings of extraordinarily beautiful refinement, expressing her love for the visual world. She revealed a particular love for the culture and physical reality of Italy. She certainly opened my eyes to those details which could so easily be overlooked. In doing so, she revealed her special delight in the Italian way of life.

I hesitate to define her as an English, Scottish or indeed British artist. Her particular art must be viewed as belonging to the great and enduring tradition associated with the latest manifestations of European painting in this age of modern art.

RICHARD DEMARCO