Miguel Mackinlay was born to a Spanish mother and a Scottish father in Guadalajara, Spain, in 1893. He was educated in Australia, where his family moved in 1906. In 1914, he immigrated to London, England to further his education in the arts, subsequently establishing himself as a skilled realist painter and a commercial artist.
Painter and commercial artist, Miguel Mackinlay was born in 1893 in Guadalajara, Spain, to a Spanish mother and a Scottish father. He has been referred to at different times as a Spanish, Scottish, and Australian artist. In 1906, following the death of his mother when he was twelve years old, he moved with his father and siblings to Fremantle in Western Australia, travelling the typical route via Marseilles, Naples, Port Said, the Suez Canal, and Colombo. Mackinlay subsequently undertook an apprenticeship with the signwriting firm, Meston & Walters, and simultaneously enrolled in art classes at Perth Technical School, where the art teacher, James W. R. Linton, later regarded him as one of his most accomplished pupils. In 1914, Mackinlay, together with fellow artist Stan Cross (who would soon return to Australia), moved to England to further his art education and career, encouraged by Linton. Both enrolled at London's St Martin’s School of Art. During this time, Mackinlay lived at 31 Cheyne Row in Chelsea with Laurie Anne R. Carruthers (a model for Augustus John), and maintained friendships with other Australian-born artists in London, including Max Martin and Horace Brodzky. In 1917, at the height of the First World War, Mackinlay was drafted into the British army, joining the 3rd Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. He began producing expressive sketches depicting life on the Western Front and was, at one point, arrested on suspicion of being a spy. In 1918, following his discharge, he married Carruthers, and the couple moved nearby to Battersea
Best known as a realist painter, Mackinlay worked in oil on canvas and watercolours, while also maintaining a parallel career as a commercial illustrator, dividing his time between the personal and commercial spheres. He worked as a magazine illustrator, producing work for Hutchison’s Story Magazine, Nash’s, Good Housekeeping and John Bull, initially signing his work as ‘Mac’, and later as ‘MM’. In 1926, he illustrated Arthur O. Cooke’s Godfrey Gets There for Blackie & Son, marking the beginning of a long-standing relationship with the publisher. From the 1920s to the 1950s, he created a significant body of work for Blackie ,while also producing illustrations for Oxford University Press and Longman. He also designed numerous posters and advertisements for a range of companies, including Bovril, the Fifty Shilling Tailors, Nestlé, and Bournville. His non-commercial painting career in England began after he had recovered his health following the First World War. In 1921, he started exhibiting with the New English Art Club (NEAC) and The London Group and became a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, where he continued to show work well into the 1950s. In 1928, the Mackinlay family moved to 31 Bournehall Road in Bushey, Hertfordshire, where Mackinlay worked in Bourne Hall Studio. In 1932, the family relocated again locally, this time to Finch Lane, where he had access to a large studio space at home.
Mackinlay’s oeuvre included painted portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes, all marked by a realistic and technically accomplished approach. Although he experimented with different styles, his work remained grounded in a strong sense of detail and structure. In some pieces, his use of line and composition reflected the influence of Cézanne’s constructive techniques, while others, particularly those with narrative or intimate subjects, bore a closer resemblance to the clarity and finish of the Pre-Raphaelites. Despite this stylistic variety, his portraits consistently demonstrated a keen psychological insight, capturing the individuality and inner life of his sitters through subtle attention to expression, pose and setting. Mackinlay’s style combines clarity of form with an acute observational eye, creating works that are both technically refined and emotionally resonant. Rather than dramatic subjects, Mackinlay depicted quiet, everyday scenes, often domestic or leisurely in nature, with understated elegance, but with the ability to suggest narrative and inner life, elevating ordinary moments into thoughtful and evocative images.
Miguel Mackinlay died in Hendon, England in 1958. Although his work was widely recognised during his lifetime, it has largely faded from public attention in the years since his death. However, his inclusion in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s 2017 exhibition, True to Life: British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s, comprising around 70 works, signalled a renewed interest in interwar realism. which was followed in 2018 with a solo exhibition at the Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum. In the UK public domain, his works are held in several collections, including Bushey Museum and Art Gallery and Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Miguel Mackinlay]
Publications related to [Miguel Mackinlay] in the Ben Uri Library