As he mentions in his acknowledgements, Damian Barr’s The Two Roberts grew out of a fascination with Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun after he spotted a social media post during lockdown. The two Roberts, as they came to be known, were working class Scottish artists who met on their first day at the Glasgow School of Art in 1933, falling in love at a time when homosexuality was illegal. Barr’s novel tells their story, rescuing them from an obscurity into which they’d sadly disappeared.
Nobody knows him like Bobby, nobody sees the world the same way, even if they move through it so differently. Nobody else believes he can become an actual artist.
Bobby, as MacBryde was known, spotted Robert Colquhoun on the train from their Ayrshire towns to the capital, sketching him and already falling a little in love with his matinee idol looks. Both struggled to take up their places at the prestigious school of art, championed by teachers who recognised their talent and fought their corner against families who could see no point in study let alone art. Bobby is the extrovert, a performer whose open gestures of affection make the buttoned-up Robert nervous. Both are immensely talented, standing out from their privileged peers and catching the eye of their tutor. It takes a while, but these two become inseparable, eventually moving into the attic of Mrs Cranston’s rundown townhouse where they work, sleep, and love each other with as much passion as they have for their art. When Robert wins the top position in their class and with it a travelling scholarship, Bobby’s second is so close he’s also awarded a grant. Their adventure begins in Paris, then Italy before it’s cut short by the impending war but not before laying the foundations of a life together that will see them feted by rich patrons, poverty stricken and homeless, their work bought by New York’s MOMA, then sinking into obscurity, all the time loving each other, fighting, drinking and working ceaselessly.
In Paris they’d identified being drunk as a definitive feature of Bohemia, the mapless region they’d longed to be citizens of.
Barr’s novel is a gorgeous, immersive love story that introduced me to two artists whose work in their heyday was compared to Braque and Picasso. It’s also a love letter to Glasgow, vividly evoked, not least Mackintosh’s School of Art which I’d loved to have seen before fire destroyed so much of it. Barr unfolds the two Roberts’ story with such skill that it never feels weighed down by his meticulous research, writing about them both with tender affection while never losing sight of the self-destructive behaviour induced by alcohol. It’ll come as no surprise that their ending was not a happy one but, after pointing out in his Afterword that The Two Roberts is a work of fiction, Barr gives them, and us, the ending he’d wished they’d had making me quite tearful.
Towards the end of the novel, Barr describes a short piece by Ken Russell, at the beginning of his career and thrilled to be filming the two artists for the BBC, which I was delighted to find on iPlayer: you can see it here.
Canongate Books: Edinburgh 9780857309051 288 pages Hardback (read via NetGalley)
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This sounds brilliant!
It is! Highly recommend it.
Great review, I thought it similarly wonderful. By coincidence, I’m at Henley Literary Festival today and later I’m going to an event with Damian Barr and Tash Aw.
Thanks, Cathy. I’m sure you’re in for a treat!
I haven’t read Barr before but this sounds charming.
This was the first one of his I’ve read. Unsurprisingly, it was the art theme that hooked me!
This sounds so rich and immersive. Also Glasgow is one of my favourite cities, so the setting is bonus too!
It’s my first Barr novel and I was very impressed. I think you’d enjoy this one.
This one will be one of my books for 2025 for sure!
Mine, too! I had hopes for a Booker longlisting .
Well, quite.
Oh I have seen this book getting good reviews. It reminds me a little bit of The Room Above a Shop, which is another fabulous read. That Russell clip is very good. Thank you.
You’re welcome, Lucy. I loved the Shapland, too.
I enjoyed this account of two artists new to me – bit grim/sad at times.
It was, indeed. They reached both extraordinary heights and depths.