Catriona Millar (b.1956), Scottish

“This delightful painting by Catriona Millar, is a beautiful celebration of quiet companionship and simple joy.

With her signature rich textures and a warm, vibrant palette, Catriona captures a tender embrace between a young girl and her content, green-eyed cat against a whimsical backdrop of blooming tulips.

It is a sweet, deeply comforting artwork that radiates harmony, affection, and the gentle happiness of a shared quiet moment.”

Born in Glasgow in 1956, Millar studied at Harrogate School of Art before graduating from Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, in 2005. Her degree show attracted immediate attention, leading to a rapid rise in profile within the Scottish contemporary art scene.

Millar is best known for her enigmatic figures, theatrical compositions and highly individual visual language. Her paintings often blur the boundaries between portraiture, memory and storytelling, creating works that are at once humorous, unsettling and deeply human.

Her exhibition record includes appearances at major Scottish institutions and annual exhibitions, notably the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. Her work is also represented in the Reiff Collection in Switzerland, one of Europe’s most significant collections of contemporary figurative art.

A turning point in her career came in 2006 when a solo exhibition in Edinburgh attracted the attention of collector Charles Saatchi, bringing her work to a much wider audience. Since then, Millar has established a strong international collector base, with paintings held in private collections throughout the UK, Europe and North America.

Today she is regarded as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Scottish figurative painting, combining technical accomplishment with a highly personal and instantly recognisable vision.