Alan often returned to his paintings and reworked them. Clip Strip was painted in 1979, revised in 1980 for an exhibition in Ireland (where it won first prize) and revised again in 2011 for his retrospective show at The McManus, A Painted World (2012). He then presented it to the RSA as his diploma work, having been elected in 2011.

Alan was born in Glasgow but grew up in Aberdeen, where he studied at Gray's School of Art from 1964-69. Several of his student works were kept by the School, including this semi-abstract still life.

The Head of Drawing at Gray's School of Art throughout the 1960s was Robert Henderson Blyth, whose work would have a strong influence on Alan's future artistic style. He later remembered some of the other staff who taught him: "I was well directed by William Littlejohn, William Connon, Derrick Ashby, Colin Thoms and Frances Walker. Very little reference was made in our programme to 'ideas' but I wrote a dissertation on 'Dali versus Magritte'.

Every summer the four Scottish art colleges sent their most promising students to the residential art school Hospitalfield on the outskirts of Arbroath. In 1968 Alan was one of those selected to go there, and was particularly influenced by Duncan of Jordanstone College tutor Jack Knox, who was the summer tutor that year. "It was during that time that I began to consider a more abstract approach to my painting. I continued to work on location, but with a more selective approach emphasising the structures of things, reducing the number of elements present and departing from local colour."

In 1969, Alan became the first student from Gray’s to be accepted for the three-year postgraduate course at the Royal College of Art in London. He later recalled: “The Royal College in the late 60s was very exciting with a dynamic created by students from all over Britain, with several Americans and Australians to add to the fun. I was tutored by Ruskin Spear, Peter Blake, David Hockney, Patrick Proctor and Leonard Rosoman. I became friendly with Carel Weight, who was a near neighbour, and spent a lot of time in garden visits talking about our common interest in Stanley Spencer, Edward Burra and figurative painting between the wars in Europe and America.”

In the 1970s Alan turned to the visual language of comics as a way of unifying material from different sources. “I had grown up with the Beano, the Dandy, the Topper and the Beezer [all published in Dundee] and loved the colour range, particularly when the newsprint had begun to yellow and the ink to fade. I was keen to learn the visual language of the comic artist and a change to water-based acrylic [inspired by Jack Knox] helped this move.” In this painting, the artist’s hand appears spraying ready-made images, “like Walt Disney landscapes flowing from an animated brush”.

Geraldine Neeson wrote of these works: "Technical brilliance, a commendable indulgence in strong well controlled colour and excellent drawing are features of Alan Robb’s work. Machine structures and fragments of body parts are shown with great discipline of form and colour. He has a gift for presenting textures, metals, fabrics, plastics. He understands to the passion for speed in today’s pattern of life, a pattern lived on the surface, seeking distraction in the shape of sensation. Ephemeral and cruel but prevalent."

On leaving the Royal College, Alan was appointed art master at Oundle School, Northamptonshire. In 1975 he moved to Crawford School of Art in Cork, becoming Head of Fine Art in 1980. He came to Dundee in 1983 as the first Head of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, uniting the previously separate departments of Drawing & Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking. Several of his fellow staff (like Peter Collins) shared a similar visual style, which would have a significant influences on the students of the time.

Alan was greatly inspired by the discussion and debate he enjoyed with fellow staff in the school, including Arthur Watson, Euan McArthur, Ian Howard, Will Maclean, Gary Fisher and Ronald Forbes (whose work is shown here). In 1987, he was appointed Professor of Fine Art and in the 1990s worked on the College’s merger with the University of Dundee (which took place in 1994), adapting the School of Fine Art to the growing importance of research and the emergence of practice-based PhDs.

Alan encouraged his students to look at artists such as Giorgio de Chirico, Edward Baird, Felice Casorati, Edward Burra and the magic realists. The result was a uniquely Dundonian response – brightly coloured, highly finished and grotesque or cartoon-like works which could seem sinister yet funny, realistic yet surreal. The work gave Duncan of Jordanstone an enviable reputation for its drawing and painting. Many students from the time have since gone on to national and international success, including Derrick Guild (whose work is not currently available on Art UK) and Sandy Guy, who later taught in both Dundee and Glasgow.

Graeme Todd was another highly acclaimed graduate from this period. Although his later work is very different in style from his bold student paintings, he still employs a multi-layered approach similar to Alan’s, using (in his words) “an additive process to build up images of landscape that are layered, contested and culturally dense”.

Vince Rattray was a much-loved Dundee artist who died sadly young in 2000. The influence of Alan and his contemporaries is evident in this student work.

This painting from Lars Stenberg’s Degree Show uses hyper-realism and symbolic imagery to create a dark and sinister scene. Lars now lives in Australia where he continues to exhibit widely.

This colourful painting takes its title from the second Persian Eclogue, written by the 18th century English poet, William Collins:
Thrice happy they, the wise contented poor,
From lust of wealth and dread of death secure.
They tempt no deserts and no griefs they find;
Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind.
Colin lived in Germany for many years but has now returned to Scotland and is based in Stonehaven. His collage-based paintings have been highly acclaimed.

Ian Charles Scott was another of Alan’s star students, creating a series of large-scale exaggerated portraits with symbolic details. He is now based in New York where he is a successful painter and teacher.

Neil Irons now lives and works in London. This large-scale painting shows the former Blue Mountains pub on the Hawkhill in Dundee and features various staff and students from the Art College including Chris Neill, Tommy Crooks, Grant Clifford and Sandy Hope.

Angus McEwan created a series of large-scale oil paintings for his Degree Show, but has since become highly praised for his watercolours. He also teaches art at Dundee & Angus College.

Alan’s fellow lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone, Euan McArthur, writes: “For Alan, attention to the surface of things enabled the painter to find their essence and reveal their depths.” Whatever the subject, “the same attentive eye and clarifying impulse shows itself.”
This painting is from a series inspired by a 3D model made as a reference for landscape painting, but here presented as a still life object.

Alan travelled to Brazil in the 1990s and developed a fascination for Afro-Brazilian folklore, particularly the symbols of religious fervour. “I wanted to explore the nature of religious statues, icons, figurines in assisting worship. I was also intrigued by the various levels of execution, from the crude or gaudy to the very highest of art forms.”
Alan retired from teaching in 2007 but continued to paint from his studio in Newport-on-Tay. “I love the Tay estuary. I remember taking a visiting Italian Professor across the Tay Bridge and he exclaimed: ‘Alan, I love your grey’. Turner could do it justice I think, or Claude Lorraine.”