My friend and colleague Alistair Crawford, who has died aged 80, was a Scottish artist who transformed the visual arts in Wales.
In 1974 Alistair joined the visual art department at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (now Aberystwyth University). There he reshaped the department according to his own philosophy, introducing a new integrated programme of art practice and art history. His eagerness to engage with students is still remembered by those he taught. In 1990 he was awarded a personal chair, as the university’s first professor of art.
All the time he was exhibiting in galleries in London and further afield, especially the US and Italy. However, the subject he captured best was the landscape of mid-Wales, which he depicted with the penetrating gaze of an outsider.
Miracles at Llanddewi Brefi, 1980, one of a suite of four prints made by Alistair Crawford in response to the poetry of W Moelwyn Merchant, former Anglican vicar at Llanddewi Brefi
A quiet atmosphere of melancholy haunts much of this work, whether the subject is a solitary cottage or a deserted seafront. Alistair’s background in textile design shows through in the balanced flatness of his compositions. In 1985, he was awarded the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales gold medal in fine art.
He retired from teaching in 1995, and in 1997 was appointed archive research fellow at the British School at Rome. The discovery of letters by a former assistant director of the school led to a dramatised event, An Evening with Eugenie Strong, written and performed by Alistair in Rome in 1996.
Fisherlad (Blue), 1990, by Crawford, whose father fished for herring along the north-east coast of Scotland. Illustration: family handout
This led to his one-man show Brief Exposure: a series of biographical stories, staged against the backdrop of a photograph, which toured from Wales to London and Vienna. Alistair was always taken aback by the warm reception he received.
The son of John Crawford, a herring fisherman and Mary (nee Holliday), who worked as a school cleaner, Alistair was born in Fraserburgh, on the north-east coast of Aberdeenshire. He would later claim that art was a refuge from the Calvinist evangelical Christianity of his parents. At Fraserburgh Academy, the art teacher Bob Duthie was a strong influence on Alistair, and he gained a place to study at Glasgow School of Art in 1962.
There he was taught by the pioneering textile designer Robert Stewart, who considered Alistair one of his most promising students. After teacher training at Aberdeen College of Education, Alistair was appointed lecturer in textile design at Leeds University where, aged only 23, he became head of department in 1968. In 1971 he moved to Coventry as lecturer in graphic design at Lanchester Polytechnic, and the same year he married Joan Martin, who became a press officer for the Royal Shakespeare Company. They celebrated afterwards at a performance of The Duchess of Malfi in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, Alistair was still writing up until a month or so before his death, recalling his formative years and re-reading poems such as Cavafy’s Ithaka, which served as a lodestone throughout his life.
He is survived by Joan, and by his older brother, John.
