Hugh Buchanan

HUGH BUCHANAN was born in Edinburgh in 1958. The city instilled in him a love of architecture that he developed as a student of Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art. After graduating in 1981, he worked on commissions for the National Trust and, in 1987, was invited by the Prince of Wales to paint a series of interiors of Balmoral. In 1988 he was commissioned by the House of Commons to paint four interiors. Hugh Buchanan's paintings are also in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Edinburgh City Art centre, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Aberdeen, the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank and the National Trust for Scotland. In 2002 he was commissioned by the House of Lords to paint the Lying in State of the Queen Mother at the Palace of Westminster. In 1987 he was one of Ten British Watercolourists shown at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, Spain. In 1991 he exhibited at the Lincoln Center, New York. In 2005 his paintings featured in Watercolours and Drawings from the Collection of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh and the Queen's Gallery, London. In 2009 his exhibition of library paintings, Enlightenment, was shown at the University of Aberdeen. In 2013 he was invited by the National Library of Scotland to paint a series of compositions of the John Murray Archive, which were exhibited at the National Library in 2015. In 2017 his exhibition at the Scottish Gallery celebrated 250 years of Edinburgh’s New Town. In 2018 his exhibition Fragments of a Classical Twilight, at the John Martin Gallery, London, examined the Beaux Arts architecture of London and Newport Rhode Island. In 2023 he was commissioned by the Lyon Court to paint The King receiving the Honours of Scotland at St Giles Cathedral Edinburgh.