Robbie Wraith left school at 16, and went to study in Florence at the invitation of Pietro Annigoni. Since then he has had twenty five one-man exhibitions.
He has work in the collection of HM The Queen as well as more than 40 pictures in the private collection of HRH The Prince of Wales, and also in the Royal Collection Windsor, The Vatican, Chatsworth, The National Trust, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Eton College, The MCC, Shell International, Blarney Castle, Fondazione Fremantle, Florence and many others.
A long list of distinguished portrait sitters includes Her Majesty The Queen, The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire commissioned by HRH The Prince of Wales, The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and Nelson Mandela, drawn while accompanying HRH The Prince of Wales as travelling artist on his official visit to South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho, and many others.
Other work for The Prince of Wales includes two series of pictures of the house and gardens at Highgrove and a series of HMY Britannia. He painted the picture presented to Pope John Paul II to commemorate his visit to Canterbury, and has painted frescoes in two churches in Italy . In 1995 he was elected to The Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
Exhibition Introduction
by Henry Wyndham, Chairman, Sotheby's
It is a great pleasure to write a few words of introduction to this exhibition of paintings and drawings by Robbie Wraith. He is an artist I have very much admired ever since I was lucky enough to persuade him to exhibit with us in my days at The St. James’s Art Group.
He stands in the great British tradition of meticulous and sensitive draughtsmanship. No spectator will leave a Robbie Wraith exhibition unimpressed by the combination of delicacy and authority in his drawings. As a portraitist he is much sought after, with a long record of distinguished sitters. As a painter, his interiors evoke a deeply sympathetic mood of contemplative calm. There can be few artists at work in Britain today whose work it is a greater pleasure to own.
Henry Wyndham
Chairman, Sotheby's
