Sophie Macpherson was born in 1957. Daughter of a portrait artist, Macpherson always found painting the most satisfying means of self-expression. She completed her art foundation course at St Martin’s and then attended Camberwell College of Art where she became inspired by the industrial landscape of London.
Immediately after art school, Macpherson travelled extensively, visiting and painting scenes of New York, Pakistan and Chile. On return to the UK she concentrated for many years on the landscape around her family home on the west coast of Scotland. Cornwall, Normandy and Italy have also stirred the artist’s imagination.
Macpherson’s work is rooted in the English painting tradition of the 1920s and 1930s and is reminiscent of paintings by Nash and Wadsworth of this period. She focused largely on maritime scenes which are primarily executed in a subdued palette.
Reflecting on her inspiration, Macpherson once commented:
“I think first and foremost it is the ‘spirit’ of the place, the inorganic manmade object contrasting with the organic forms of land and sea - alfresco still life as it has been described."