David Michie was a Scottish painter, known for his still lifes, landscapes and depictions of everyday people.
David Michie was born in 1928 in Saint-Raphaël, the south of France. He was born into a family of artists, his mother was the renowned Edinburgh School painter Anne Redpath (1895-1965) and his father the painter and architect, James Beattie Michie (1891-1960), his elder brother, Alastair Michie (1921-2008) was known for his painting and sculpting work. Michie's early childhood was spent in the French Riviera where the family lived in the boathouse of Chateau Gloria, a villa owned by a wealthy American, to whom Michie's father was the private architect to. Michie's family relocated to Hawich in the Scottish Borders in 1934, the hometown of Redpath.
Michie completed his primary and schooling in Hawick and started at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1946 where his studies were interrupted when he was called up for National Service a year later. He served two years in the Royal Artillery Signals Corps, stationed predominantly in Wales. Michie returned to the Edinburgh College of Art from 1949-1953 where he became close and enduring friends with fellow artists David McClure and John Houston and was taught by his mother's contemporary, William Gillies. After graduating, Michie and Houston took a trip to Italy together using funds from Edinburgh College's travel scholarship. They were later joined on their travels by the artist Elizabeth Blackadder, with whom Michie would maintain a close lifelong friendship.
Michie began lecturing at the Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen, before returning to the Edinburgh College of Art as a lecturer in the early sixties. He served as Vice Principle to the college (1974-1977) and later became the Head of the Drawing and Painting School at Edinburgh, staying in this role until his retirement in 1990. The artist also travelled for work, including a stint as a visiting artist at the University of the Arts in Belgrade (1979) and as a visiting professor at the University of California (1991).
Michie's artistic style is often characterised by his use of bright colour, bringing comparisons to the work of Henri Matisse and the Fauvist movement. In terms of subject matter, Michie found inspiration in observing everyday interactions, often depicting people he came across on his travels and in the street. At the Edinburgh College of Art, William Gillies taught his students that he believed that art should always be rooted in the perceived world and this principle appears to have influenced Michie's own work.
In interviews, Michie recalled his teachers at Edinburgh encouraging students to look at great masters paintings to inform their own work. Despite admiring these works, Michie said that French and Italian cinema had been a much greater inspiration in his art, naming Marcel Pagnol and Marcel Carné as influential filmmakers, among many others. Michie spoke of his affinity to a quote by the artist Paul Sérusier, who said 'It is the role of the artist to see the significant in the ordinary'.
In 2008, the artist's 80th birthday was marked with a major solo exhibition at the Scottish Gallery and in 2012 the gallery held an exhibition of the work of the Michie family; Anne Redpath, James Beattie Michie and Alastair Michie. Michie's work is represented in a number of public collections, including that of National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh Art Gallery and the Tate.
