In his account of his life at the Royal High, Archie describes how he arrived at Regent Road from Moray House College in the Autumn Term of 1967/68, for a six week teaching experience under the tutelage of Mr Taylor (Physics) and Mr. Dingwall (Mathematics). He retired as Principal Teacher of Physics in 1996, and as he recounts in his ‘Painting CV’, “all I wished to do was build miniature locomotives”. He was however soon seduced by paintings, starting his own career with ‘Binn’s Corner from the Caledonian Station’, in which both he and his future wife feature.

More than eighty paintings have rolled off the Davidson production line since then, an extraordinarily varied collection of superb images. Archie mostly paints requests from family or friends, so they have no theme, and the paintings are scattered all around. There’s an ‘Eileen Donan Castle’ in NE China!

His favourite influences include The Colourists, The Glasgow Boys, Dundee’s James Mcintosh Patrick, Jim Nicholson, Robert Easton Stuart and Edward Hopper. He is sad that Jack Vettriano cannot escape the RSA’s vicissitudes, and be given adequate exhibition space, but hopefully is satisfied by his great wealth. You can see Archie’s thirty chosen images as a PDF or alternatively we hope you enjoy the gallery below, which feature the same images from his portfolio.

Click on any of the images below to enable a full screen slideshow.