Robert Brough was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 painter born in Invergordon

Invergordon

Invergordon is a town and port in Easter Ross, in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, Scotland.-History:The town is well known for the Invergordon Mutiny of 1931. More recently it was also known for the repair of oil rigs which used to be lined up in the Cromarty Firth on which the town is situated...

, Ross and Cromarty

Ross and Cromarty

Ross and Cromarty is a variously defined area in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. There is a registration county and a lieutenancy area in current use...

.

He was educated in Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

, and, whilst apprenticed for over six years as lithographer to Messrs Gibb & Co., attended the night classes at Gray's School of Art

Gray's School of Art

Gray's School of Art is an integral part of the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen that is one of the oldest established fine art institutions in Scotland...

. He then entered the Royal Scottish Academy

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...

, and in the first year took the Stuart prize for figure painting, the Chalmers painting bursary, and the Maclame-Walters medal for composition.

After two years in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 under J. P. Laurens and Benjamin-Constant at Julian's atelier, he settled in Aberdeen in 1894 as a portrait painter and political cartoonist. A portrait of Mr. W. D. Ross first drew attention to his talent in 1896, and in the following year he scored a marked success at the Royal Academy with his Fantaisie en Folie, which he bequeathed to the National Gallery of British Art (now the Tate

Tate

-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...

 gallery). Two of his paintings, Twixt Sun and Moon and Childhood of St. Anne of Brittany, were at the Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 municipal gallery. Brough's art was influenced by Henry Raeburn

Henry Raeburn

Sir Henry Raeburn was a Scottish portrait painter, the first significant Scottish portraitist since the Act of Union 1707 to remain based in Scotland.-Biography:...

 and by modern French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 training, but it strikes a very personal note.

Brough died from injuries received in a railway disaster in 1905.