David McCleod Martin Scottish , 1922-2018

David McLeod Martin was born in Glasgow in 1922 and studied at Glasgow School of Art, beginning his studies in 1940 before serving in the RAF during the Second World War. After returning to complete his training, he worked for 35 years as an art teacher while continuing to develop his own painting and textile design interests, studying under influential designer Robert Stewart.

Although he exhibited regularly throughout his teaching career, it was after retiring in 1983 that Martin fully established himself as a painter. His distinctive style combined strong pattern, colour, and texture, influenced by artists such as Georges Braque and Henri Hayden. A member of both the Royal Glasgow Institute and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, he exhibited widely in Scotland and internationally, holding more than 25 solo exhibitions, including a retrospective at Perth Museum and Art Gallery in 1999. He continued painting energetically well into his nineties and died in 2018.