Duncan Mackinnon Crockford

Canadian [1920-1991]

Duncan Crockford was born in Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. He first started drawing at the age of 13 and soon after won a Sunday Times newspaper award. He trained at the Glasgow School of Art under MacGregor White, a Royal Scottish Academy trained landscape and marine painter. This formal training was the foundation for his tremendous success in both landscapes and seascapes. 

He painted for Sir Charles Forte, who owned hotels in London and throughout England, and also created murals in the Cafe Royal (London) and the Isle of Wight. Very few of Duncan’s paintings from this time reached the commercial market, as he was fully occupied with commission work. His North American career began with an exhibition in New York, sponsored by the Scottish Society of New York City in 1953. He then spent the following year painting in Arizona.

Duncan Mackinnon Crockford immigrated to Canada in 1954 and soon became a Canadian citizen. The awe-inspiring view and beauty of the Rocky Mountains so impressed Crockford that he and his wife, Winifred (Wynne) Clayton (Crockford), decided to settle permanently in Alberta, where they resided in both Canmore and in the Bearspaw area. Duncan was an Associate Member of the Strathcona’s Officers’ Mess in Calgary.

The artist became known as “Duncan” in artistic circles, as this is how he typically signed his paintings. Duncan Mackinnon Crockford became an artist of considerable renown in Alberta, particularly for his landscapes depicting the Alberta countryside, the foothills and the Rocky Mountains. 

Popular with local collectors, his work was also found in some notable collections in Canada and internationally, including those of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Pierre Trudeau, Peter Lougheed and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Crockford passed away in 1991. His wife of 43 years continued to live in their Alberta home until her death in 2003.