Biography
Robin Ironside (b. London, UK 1912 - d. 1965) was a self-taught painter in gouache of Surrealist fantasies, designer for the theatre and writer on art. He studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London and abroad. Ironside was Assistant Keeper at the Tate Gallery (1937–46); Assistant Secretary of the Contemporary Art Society (1938–45) and a Contemporary Art Society Committee Member (1946-52) as well as its elected buyer in 1949/50. His first solo exhibition in London was at The Redfern Gallery (with his brother Christopher) in 1944; his first solo exhibition in New York was at Durlacher Bros. in 1952. He exhibited with Francis Bacon at the Hanover Gallery in 1949. He collaborated with Christopher Ironside in paintiing and applied art, and in theatrical décor for Sylvia, Covent Garden 1952, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Edinburgh Festival 1957, etc. He is the author of Wilson Steer (1944); Painting since 1939 (1947); The Pre-Raphaelites (1948) and David Jones (1949).