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Barr, Damian

The Two Roberts

The Two Roberts

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Sue says about The Two Roberts: 
A fascinating, tender, poignant story cleverly woven around two real-life artists, Robert Colquhoun and Bobby MacBryde who met on the train on their way to their first day at Glasgow School of Art and remain together for the rest of their lives, from 1933 until 1962.


He will stay like this forever, Robert's arm draped round him. They will be forever twenty. Scotland, 1933. Bobby MacBryde is on his way. After years grafting at Lees Boot Factory, he's off to the Glasgow School of Art, to his future. On his first day he will meet another Robert, a quiet man with loose dark curls - and never leave his side.

Together they will spend every penny and every minute devouring Glasgow - its botanical gardens, the Barras market, a whole hidden city - all the while loving each other behind closed doors. With the world on the brink of war, their unrivalled talent will take them to Paris, Rome, London. They will become stars as the bombs fall, hosting wild parties with the likes of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Elizabeth Smart. But the brightest stars burn fastest.

Stunningly reimagined, The Two Roberts is a profoundly moving story of devotion and obsession, art and class. It is a love letter to MacBryde and Colquhoun, the almost-forgotten artists who tried to change the way the world sees - and paid a devastating price.

 

Author: Barr, Damian
Of specific Gay interest
Published on 4 September 2025 by Canongate Books in the United Kingdom.
Hardback | 320 pages
221 x 144 x 31 | 420g
 
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