White Butterfly, Yellow Painting, 1964
Craigie Aitchison was born in Edinburgh in 1926. From a young age, he was exposed to the works of the Scottish Colourists, including S. J. Peploe and F. C. B. Cadell, via his father’s art collection, and the Post-Impressionists including van Gogh and Gauguin through his study of reproductions. It seems Aitchison felt a deep affinity to these artists, influencing, and perhaps encouraging, his own deft handling of colour.
Throughout his career, Aitchison restricted his subject-matter to portraits, figure studies, landscapes and still-lifes, and he persistently returned to the subject of the Crucifixion. His style became increasingly reductive, with colour taking an ever more important role. Eventually, colour became as important within his works as the subject.
Craigie Aitchison studied at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1952 – 1954 where he met the likes of Euan Uglow and William Coldstream. In 1955, he was introduced to Helen Lessore, director of the Beaux Arts Gallery who held his first three solo exhibitions from 1959-62. From 1968 to 1984 Aitchison taught at The Chelsea Art Schools, and dedicated the rest of his time to his own practice at his home in Kennington. In 1988 he was made a Royal Academician, awarded the esteemed Jerwood Prize in 1994, and made a CBE in 1999. He had several major shows in his lifetime, including retrospectives at the Serpentine (1981), Harewood House (1994), the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (1996), and the Royal Academy (2003).