The female figure was at the centre of Pat Douthwaite's highly non-conformist and intensely personal style. Using pure, bright areas of colour, her graphic line – often describing grotesque deformations of the stylised human body – expresses raw human emotion, at times in extremis, sometimes bordering the comical.

Pat Douthwaite, 1934-2002

Pat Douthwaite was born in Glasgow, originally studying mime and modern dance with Margaret Morris. She later became a self-taught painter, a decision that was influenced by Morris’s husband, the Scottish Colourist J. D. Fergusson. In the late 1950s, Douthwaite made the decision to take up a career in visual art. She had her first solo show at 57 Gallery in Edinburgh in 1958. Her work became well known for exploring issues of femininity and womanhood through the use of dark imagery, vibrant colours, and a confident, yet fragile, line. Douthwaite used her inner self as a subject, with her work evoking humanity's torment. From 1959 to 1988, Douthwaite led a more nomadic lifestyle and travelled extensively around the world. She died in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, in July 2002. Following her death in 2005, the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh hosted a memorial exhibition.