The Last Bohemians

I read this book about The Two Roberts - Colquhoun and MacBryde - when it was first published a few years ago.
It's a very in-depth, thoroughly researched piece of writing by Roger Bristow about two Ayrshire-born artists whose collective star burned brightly during the 1940s and 50s before being prematurely snuffed out through a combination of hard-living, hard-drinking and self-neglect.
The late Ken Russell made a short film about the lifelong partners for BBC Television's Monitor programme, which was televised in 1959.
He described it as it as 'the most enjoyable film I've ever made', calling the two Scotsmen (who famously wore kilts in London at any opportunity), 'the last of the real Bohemian painters'.
I had the book out today as I'm writing about Robert Colquhoun for this Saturday's Herald newspaper.
He is an artist who is very close to home for me. As part of my research for the piece, I spoke to my former art teacher, Davy Brown, a long-term champion of both artists.
Davy taught me in the same art rooms at Kilmarnock Academy where he himself had been taught in the early 1960s. They were also the same art rooms where Colquhoun had been taught in the late 1920s.
Davy told me the head of the art department when I was at school, Jock McKissock, had known Colquhoun at Glasgow School of Art, which was a revelation to me.
It all goes round in a circle.
It was lovely to talk to Davy, who is still painting away, despite ill health.
Art teachers are such influential people...