Michie was born in the south of France, where his early experiences of light, colour and landscape had an undeniable influence on his work, but he returned to Scotland with his mother and brothers in 1934 and was brought up in Hawick, in the Scottish Borders. Travelling was a constant source of inspiration for Michie, his paintings born as a response to observations captured rapidly in his many sketchbooks, which he referred to as “untidy visual diaries”. He often shone an intellectual and witty light on the mundane, with brightly coloured and carefully constructed compositions.

David Michie OBE RSA, 1928-2015

The youngest of the three sons of Anne Redpath, David Michie was born in St Raphael in the South of France. He returned to Scotland with his mother and brothers in 1934 and was brought up in Hawick, Roxburghshire. His studies at Edinburgh College of Art from 1946 to 1953 were interrupted by two years' National Service in the Royal Artillery. The award of the college's Senior Travelling Scholarship allowed him to paint in Italy in 1953 for a year. Michie taught drawing and painting at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen from 1958 to 1962, when he joined the teaching staff of Edinburgh College of Art. He was Vice-Principal from 1974 to 1977, and Head of the School of Drawing and Painting from 1982 until his retirement in 1990. He held a Personal Chair at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh from 1988 until 1991, when he was created Professor Emeritus. He was then Visiting Professor to the Art Studio Department of the University of California in Santa Barbara.