Bette McArdle

Bette McArdle has been an artist for almost 60 years. She runs art workshops for the Highland Council , writes on art for newspapers and boasts the Queen Mum as a former art client.

Here is Bette's full CV plus images of a few of her works:-
1947 – Bette won the Silver Medal in Glasgow Corporation Art Competition at age 11. The following year she visited a Van Gogh exhibition and decided that painting was for her!

1950s – Visited Paris and saw the Impressionists/Post-impressionists for the first time. Studied drawing and painting at Glasgow School of Art

Early 1970s – Painted full-time, mainly landscapes and townscapes, exhibiting in the Caithness Artists Society and Lyth Arts Centre, also Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts.

Here private clients included the late HM Queen Mother; her lady-in-waiting Ruth Lady Fermoy ( Princess Di’s granny!); the then Ambassador in Moscow; the Board of UKAEA Dounreay plus various others in Canada and USA. Founding president of Lyth Arts Society, Caithness. One-woman show Thurso Library 1973.

Joint show with photographer Glyn Satterley in the Gaelic Church, on the Royal Mile, during the 1979 Edinburgh Festival

One-woman show during Wick Festival 1981.

1990s – Found a developing interest in glass. Attended various short glass courses, mainly with Inge Panneels’ Idagos workshop in Edinburgh, and Glasgow School of Art Summer School.

In February 2000 attended 3-week international glass workshop at Kitengela, Kenya and exhibited in Nairobi. September 2003 attended 10-day Glass International Masterclass at Northlands centre of excellence, Lybster, Caithness.

Member of art.tm, Inverness (was on the Board for 3-year stint 1999-2001); the Arts Society of Inverness (for whom act as an occasional tutor); Moray Arts Club; Scottish Glass Society and exhibit with them regularly. On steering committee of Arts in Merkinch and recently organised successful inaugural exhibition.

Bette has run workshops for National Trust for Scotland, Highland Council and local groups, draw from life models regularly, talk to U3A and other local groups on arts-related subjects and writes on the visual arts for local newspapers.

She exhibits regularly with Arts Society Inverness, Moray Arts Club, Tore Arts Fair. Invited participant in Highland Festival’s Promenade art event, June 2004. Held a major one-woman show of paintings, drawings and glass in Eden Court Aug 04.

Artist’s statement
"My early artistic roots include the French post-impressionists and the Scottish colourists. I appreciate abstract and conceptual art, but firmly believe that realism will never be a spent force as long as human beings think and feel the way they do, and so I am always trying to develop my own particular vision of the world around me."