Obituary: Ian McKenzie Smith, museum director, artist and former president of RSA

Ian McKenzie Smith was born in Montrose in 1935, the second child of James McKenzie Smith, a railwayman, and his wife Mary.

When he was 11, the family moved to Aberdeen, and his parents made sacrifices to send their sons to the fee-paying Robert Gordon’s College. Working part-time delivering bread in the city’s west end, he became aware of the stark contrasts between this area and his family’s modest flat in Torry.

Though a conscientious student, his focus was always on art and he benefitted from seeing the paintings and drawings in Aberdeen Art Gallery which was next to the school. He also loved music and played the bagpipes, becoming Pipe Major of the school band.

At Gray’s School of Art in the late 1950s, he was taught by artists such as Ian Fleming and Robert Henderson-Blyth, and won a catalogue of prizes. In 1958 and 1959, he attended two formative summer schools at Hospitalfield in Arbroath where he was inspired by the energy and focus of artist-in-residence James McIntosh Patrick, while having heated discussions with him about abstract art. During his second stay at Hospitalfield, he met Mae (Mary) Fotheringham, who would become his wife.

On a travel scholarship to Europe with the artist Jack Knox, he went to Brussels to see an exhibition of modern American painting which included the work of Philip Guston, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. This was a key inspiration, as was seeing the work of Japanese and Chinese artists in Paris, particularly Kenzo Okada, whom he later met in New York. He began to paint in an abstract style at that time, and also read a book about Zen Buddhism, adopting practices which he found helpful for focusing on painting.

Ian and Mae married in 1963 and Ian worked briefly as a teacher before getting a job as education officer at the Council of Industrial Design in Glasgow.

The McKenzie Smiths had just moved to a new home in Helensburgh in 1968 with their two older children, Sarah and Patrick, when Ian was appointed director of Aberdeen Art Gallery, necessitating another house move. They settled in the west end of Aberdeen, where he had once delivered bread, and were joined by a third child, Justin, in 1969.

Though he had no experience of running museums, Ian settled in quickly and began a programme of modernisation, inspired by galleries and museums he had seen in Europe.

He enthusiastically embraced Aberdeen Art Gallery’s founding policy of collecting modern and contemporary art, purchasing works by Frank Auerbach, Patrick Heron, Joan Eardley and Elizabeth Blackadder among many others.

At the time, Aberdeen was transforming in the wake of the discovery of North Sea oil, and Ian was convinced of the important role the arts could play in the city’s future. He said his aim was for the art gallery to become “a home for all the muses”, and supported practitioners across the arts both formally and with valuable informal mentoring.

He developed an ambitious programme of exhibitions, sometimes as many as 50 per year across the different venues, ranging from blockbuster shows such as Paintings from Windsor Castle and Turner in Scotland to the latest modern art from Europe, brought to Scotland by Richard Demarco.

Having worked at the Council for Industrial Design, he maintained an interest in the applied arts, giving curators budgets to build up collections of textiles, ceramics and jewellery. One landmark exhibition was the popular retrospective in 1990 for the Aberdeenshire-born fashion designer Bill Gibb, who had died in 1988.

He also developed the city’s other museums, modernising Provost Skene’s House and the Tolbooth Museum, and launching the award-winning Aberdeen Maritime Museum in 1984, telling the story of the city’s new role as a hub for the offshore oil industry as well as its heritage in fishing and shipping. True to his word on creating “a home for all the muses” he developed programmes for world cinema and classical music.

A reserved figure, always immaculately dressed, he proved adept at persuading others of his vision, from councillors to potential benefactors. He built relationships with art collectors, enabling significant works to be loaned and bequeathed to the gallery, including the Hyslop Collection of Scottish Colourist paintings, and chaired the Marguerite McBey Trust, which provided important support to the arts and artists in the city.

In 1989, he was appointed City Arts Officer, overseeing all the arts provision, and subsequently became director of the Arts and Recreation Department. A further innovation during his tenure was the opening of The Lemon Tree, a new medium-scale arts venue for theatre and music.

When he retired in 1996, he continued to work with the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, of which he was President, and in 1998 became President of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture (RSA), a post he held for the next ten years.

This was a time of transition for the Academy, temporarily relocating from its headquarters on The Mound while the building was refurbished, and negotiating its new relationship with National Galleries Scotland. Ian was a steady hand in this time of change, also steering significant constitutional reforms within the organisation.

Thoughout his working life, he continued with his own painting practice, working in bursts to meet deadlines for exhibitions while drawing on Zen principles of calm and focus. He became a highly regarded abstract painter, and was often inspired by travel, be it to Orkney, Russia or North America, though his mark-making evoked mood and atmosphere rather than directly describing the places he visited.

He had solo exhibitions in the 57 Gallery, Scottish Gallery, Compass Gallery, and in the Fine Art Society in London, as well as taking part in many group shows. His works are held in public collections all over the UK including National Galleries Scotland, the Government Art Collection and the Fleming Collection, and are in private collections around the world.

Ian and Mae were married for almost 61 years until her death in 2023 and he regarded her as a collaborator in all he did. Both loved the Lonach Gathering in Strathdon, where they were regulars, reuniting every year with friends over a picnic. Fiddler Paul Anderson composed a tune, ‘Mae McKenzie Smith’s Lonach Picnic’, in their honour.

He is survived by his three children, Sarah, Patrick and Justin, and his four grandchildren.

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