Victoria Crowe is one of Scotland's most significant living artists. Her ability to skilfully weave together landscape, portraiture, still life, and interiors make her artwork both highly desirable and instantly recognisable.
She has achieved international status and recognition due to many high-profile exhibitions and notable commissions, including portraits of poet Kathleen Raine, composer Thea Musgrave, Professor Peter Higgs, a double portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, and HRH Prince Charles.
Crowe began her artistic career at the age of 16 when she attended Kingston School of Art, followed by the Royal College of Art, London. Robin Philipson, who was then head of the Edinburgh College of Art, saw her degree show in 1968 and immediately offered her a teaching post in Edinburgh, where she subsequently taught drawing and painting for thirty years. She also took over the botanical drawing class upon Elizabeth Blackadder's retirement.
Crowe has noted that she uses plant imagery as 'ciphers and symbols within a greater whole', which means that her flower paintings operate simultaneously as abstract objects, as depictions of our known environment and as a symbolic language. Her works often begin as observations of the natural, visible world, before becoming layered with symbols and meditations on time, memory, and imagination.
Crowe’s ability allows her to explore the fluidity and the boundaries of physical space, while also capturing the simplicity of symbolic details. Today, Crowe is represented in a large number of private and public collections. She has recently exhibited extensively, with simultaneous shows at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Scottish Gallery (Edinburgh International Festival) in 2018, followed by a major lifetime retrospective at the City Art Centre in Summer 2019. She divides her time working and living in Venice and the Scottish Borders.