'Outstanding artist, leader and advocate for the arts' who led Royal Scottish Academy dies aged 90

Dr Ian McKenzie Smith, who was president of the RSA from 1998 to 2007, died on Wednesday.

Born in Montrose in 1935, Dr McKenzie Smith studied at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, and at Hospitalfield, Arbroath, where he met his wife, Mae.

Influenced early in his career by the Danish, Dutch and Belgian artists of the COBRA group, his practice centred on abstract painting, often inspired by the landscape. In 1958, a travelling scholarship took him to Paris where encounters with the Japanese artist Kenzo Okada and Zen philosophy left a lasting impression.

Dr McKenzie Smith also served as director of Aberdeen Art Gallery from 1968 to 1989 and head of the city’s arts and recreation department from 1989 to 1996.

He was also president of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour from 1988 to 1998 and served on the Committee for the British School at Rome, the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (Arts Council England) and as a Trustee of the National Galleries of Scotland, among other roles, before becoming president of the RSA. He was awarded a CBE in 2009.

During his presidency, he led the temporary relocation of the RSA during the refurbishment of the Academy building and steering significant constitutional reforms that broadened its membership and remit.

His paintings and prints are held in many public collections, including the National Galleries of Scotland, as well as in private collections across the UK, Europe, North America, and Japan.

A spokesperson for the RSA said: “The Academy extends its deepest condolences to Ian’s family. He will be remembered as an outstanding artist, leader and advocate for the arts in Scotland.”