RSA David Michie Travel Award: Deadline: Sunday 23 March 2025, 5pm

• Entrants must be painters.

• Entrants must either be undergraduates graduating in summer 2025 or currently studying at postgraduate level at one of the following Scottish art schools: Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, Edinburgh College of Art, Glasgow School of Art, and University of the Highlands & Islands.

How to apply

• Applications are made through Submittable. 
  • Please read the guidelines in full before completing your application: RSA Student Award Guidelines

Application has closed for 2025. 

We are pleased to announce this years winner is Lilian Evans. Glasgow School of Art student Lilian will use the award funds to travel to Seattle, Washington, USA, a city shaped by industry and networks of global trade. Lilian’s work engages with discarded materials, utilising unusual materials such as the side curtains of lorries, objects that have travelled great distances, weathered time, and absorbed traces of past journeys. Read more about this year's student award winners here.

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David Alan Redpath Michie OBE RSA (1928 – 2015) was born at Saint-Raphaël, France. His father, James Michie, was an architect and painter and his mother was the celebrated artist Anne Redpath OBE RSA.

Michie’s early years were spent living in St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and the vibrant colour schemes of the Côte d’Azur would later infuse his work. In 1934, his family settled in the Scottish Borders. In 1946, he enrolled at Edinburgh College of Art where he was taught by William Gillies RSA. In 1953, after a period of National Service, he received a travelling scholarship to Italy, accompanied by his friend, the painter John Houston. They toured the Renaissance sites of Tuscany, and stayed in the hilltop towns of Anticoli Corrado and Orvieto in Umbria. 

Michie taught widely, lecturing at James Clarke’s School, Edinburgh, and Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen. He was a visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Art in Belgrade and the University of California. He returned to Edinburgh College of Art to teach painting during the 1960s and 1970s, and was Vice Principal there from 1974 to 1977. 

Banner image: Emma Hall, Rhododendron (detail), 2024, oil on canvas