Ian mckenzie smith biography

Born in Montrose in 1935, Ian McKenzie Smith PPRSA studied at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen, and at Hospitalfield, Arbroath. A travelling scholarship took McKenzie Smith to Paris, where he met the Japanese artist Kenzo Okada and encountered Zen philosophy.  An oriental sense of balance and calligraphic finesse has been a feature of his work ever since. McKenzie Smith was Director of Aberdeen Art Gallery from 1968 to 1989 and was the city's arts and recreation officer from 1989 to 1996.

Awarded an OBE for services to art in 1992, and a CBE in 2009, he was President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour from 1988 to 1998; Secretary of the Royal Scottish Academy from 1991 to 1998; and President of the Royal Scottish Academy from 1998 to 2007. 

McKenzie Smith has work in many public collections including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; the University of Glasgow; the Fleming Collection; the Government Ar