Will Maclean (b. 1941)

Will Maclean studied at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen (1961-65) and the British School of Rome (1966), before spending some time as a ring-net fisherman in Skye. In 1973 he was commissioned by the Scottish International Education Trust to make a study of the declining Scottish ring-net herring fishing industry. In 1974 he began making box constructions using found objects as metaphors for aspects of Scottish seafaring history. The title of this work refers to the Solan goose, or gannet, which traditionally migrates to the Western Isles of Scotland in the thousands from March to September, and feeds off the herrings.

Maclean is represented in the collections of Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow City Art Galleries, and the Yale Centre for British Art, USA, amongst many others. A retrospective exhibition of his work is currently being held at the Fleming Collection in London, 8th March - 4th June.