Artist, designer and teacher. An appreciation

CONRAD McKenna, who has died aged 95, first encountered Glasgow School of Art in 1939 .Thus he had a remarkable perspective of the place as a student and member of staff.

Until shortly before his death he was a regular at the Glasgow Art Club and indeed was one of four artists who put on a show in the club last summer. Those who saw his work, particularly his linocuts, were astonished by its quality and wondered why we hadn’t seen much more of it over the years.

Conrad left St Aloysius school at age 14 to contribute to the family circumstances and, in 1937 and after a few short jobs, became an office boy in Barclay Curle’s shipbuilders where his skill at producing caricatures was noticed.

In 1938 his redoubtable mother, his father having passed away at the early age of 47, decided on her own initiative, to see W O Hutchison, director of Glasgow School of Art with some of his drawings - you couldn’t do that these days. Hutchison said to Mrs McKenna “ tell him not to hide his light under a bushel” - advice which Conrad notably failed to follow over the years. Hutchison also told Mrs McKenna to “send the boy along-we’ll take him in for a year and teach him drawing”. Conrad was only 16 and did not have the requisite educational qualifications - what a wise judgement that was.

GSA has always had, and I hope still has, the provision to accept up to seven per cent of its intake without the formal educational requirements if they can demonstrate exceptional work.

Conrad’s early time at GSA was interrupted in 1942 by war service and having been a keen Air Training Corps cadet like his older brother Maurice, it was the Royal Air Force which called him and he trained as a navigator in Canada.

After demob he returned to GSA and completed his studies in commercial art under Ed Powell and was awarded a major travelling scholarship which took him all over Europe.

An opportunity arose in the department in 1950 and he became a part time member of Powell’s staff, subsequently becoming full-time with Jack Fleming in the general course teaching design in 1954.

When Harry Barnes, then deputy director, sought to revive the teaching of historic ornament, Conrad got the job and the writer well remembers his first lecture when Conrad introduced the subject with an analogy of a 'beetle crawling over a single thread of the tapestry of history’.

What a pity that we did not know of his RAF aircrew service for it might have given us a quite different appreciation of the man and even more so if we had seen is lino-cuts and wood engravings.

The writer remembers when he was student in the late 1950s Conrad driving a stylish, black Ford V8 Pilot which was usually parked in front of the Mackintosh Building, alongside the director’s more prosaic Morris Oxford.

Supervisor of the evening school was a task rightly given to Conrad which he tackled with customary efficiency.

He also spent some time in Ghana after GSA had been asked to help in setting up a school of art there but it was Italy, its culture and language which became a lifetime passion and he was central to the arrangements which saw the annual visits of GSA parties to San Gimignano. He would even teach the language in weekly sessions to the odd member of the Art Club.

Conrad McKenna retired from GSA in 1984 after 50 years full-time teaching and enjoyed a happy and productive retirement.

DUGALD CAMERON