Robert Brough RA ARSA 1872-1905

Brough was a precocious talent: he started at the newly opened Gray’s School of Art and then to Edinburgh to attend the Royal Scottish Academy Life School. By the end of his first year, he was awarded three significant prizes. Brough completed further training in Paris, enrolling at the Acadamie Julien with his great friend, the Scottish Colourist S. J. Peploe, before travelling on in search of Sisley at Moret-sur-Seine and then Gauguin at Pont Aven in Brittany. By 1897, and the age of twenty-five, he was working in London alongside Sargent. Brough’s life was cut short at the age of thirty-two when he suffered significant burns as the result of a train accident, Sargent hurried to be by his side at the end.

His career lasted just sixteen years and, in the period, following his death, artistic fashions moved quickly away from the elegant portraiture that artists like Brough and Sargent had favoured. This may explain why an artist so lauded in his day is relatively little known now.

Robert Brough’s talent was beautifully summarised by his great friend and mentor, John Singer Sargent: ‘...the grace, the fluidity, the lightness of touch that are so delightful in Brough; that very rare quality of surface that seems to make the actual paint a precious substance.’

We are actively seeking consignments of work by Robert Brough. Please contact us with details or to enquire after available works by this artist.