B. 1890 - 1967 

Scottish artist Iain Macnab was a formative figure in the interwar revival of printmaking and the adoption of modern art in Australia. After moving from Glasgow to London following World War I, he founded the radical Grosvenor School of Modern Art from his home in 1925.

For many artists looking to the avant-garde developing abroad, Macnab’s classes were instrumental. Among his Australian students were printmakers Dorrit Black, Ethel Spowers, and Eveline Syme, the Surrealist Peter Purves Smith, as well as the influential modernist George Bell who would continue Macnab’s line of teaching back in Australia. 

Macnab was a prolific artist in his own right, working across wood engraving, linocut, lithography and painting. His style abstracted the figures and landscapes around him, echoing the rhythmic and dynamic forms of Futurist and Vorticist art.

Iain Macnab’s influence on future generations of artists is evident in the career of many alumni of the Grosvenor School, while the quality of his work is demonstrated by his inclusion in such major UK and Australian collections as the British Museum, the V&A, and the National Gallery of Victoria.