About

Jock McFadyen was born in Paisley in 1950 and moved to England aged 15 in 1966. He gained his BA and MA from Chelsea School of Art which he attended from 1973 to 1977.

His first solo show was held at the Acme Gallery in London in 1978. Since then he has had over 40 solo exhibitions including The National Gallery (residency show), Camden Arts Centre, the Imperial War Museum, Manchester Art Gallery, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Talbot Rice (Edinburgh Festival) and the Pier Art Centre (St Magnus Festival). His work has been included in many mixed exhibitions in the UK and abroad including John Moores, Hayward Annual and The British Art Show.

In 1981 McFadyen was appointed Artist in Residence at the National Gallery London and a decade later he was invited to design sets and costumes for Sir Kenneth MacMillan's last ballet, The Judas Tree at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

McFadyen was elected to the Royal Academy in 2012 and in 2019 he was coordinator of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He became an Honorary Royal Scottish Academician in 2021

In 2020 and 2021, four exhibitions were held to celebrate McFadyen’s 70th birthday: Jock McFadyen Goes to the Pictures (City Art Centre, Edinburgh), Jock McFadyen: Lost Boat Party (Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh), Jock McFadyen Goes to The Lowry: A Retrospective (The Lowry, Salford) and Jock McFadyen: Tourist without a Guidebook(Royal Academy, London)

McFadyen’s work is held in 40 public museum collections including Tate, the National Gallery, the V&A, the British Museum and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art as well as many corporate and private collections in the UK and abroad.

McFadyen lives and works in London, Edinburgh and France.

Public Collections

Amnesty International
Arts Council of Great Britain
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
BBC, London
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
British Council, London
British Museum, London
City of Edinburgh
Contemporary Art Society, London
Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery
Glasgow Art Galleries
The Government Art Collection
The Guildhall, London
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow
Imperial War Museum, London
Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Leicester Education Authority
Lillie Art Gallery, Glasgow
Manchester Art Gallery
Museum of London
National Gallery, London
Pier Arts Centre, Orkney
Scottish Arts Council
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Sheffield City Art Gallery
Tate, London
Theatre Museum, London
University of Dundee
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The New Art Gallery Walsall
Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
Wolverhampton City Art Gallery
Worcester Art Gallery
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Corporate Collections

Many private and corporate collections, including Clifford Chance, Deutsche Bank, Fleming Collection and Prudential