Tam MacPhail

Born 1938 – Died 2020

MacPhail was a sculptor and bookseller, who was born in California and lived for most of his life in Scotland. In the 1960s, MacPhail moved from California to Edinburgh where he met and married Gunnie Moberg, a Swedish textile designer, photographer and art therapist. They moved to Argyll and had four sons in quick succession. During this time MacPhail created a series of geometric sculptures in metal as well as a number of conceptual and kinetic works, exhibiting his work at venues such as the Richard Demarco Gallery.

In the mid-1970s, MacPhail received a £500 grant from the Scottish Arts Council. A year later he was required to submit all the art made possible by the grant money. MacPhail handed in every cheque he’d written over the previous twelve months, adding up to £500. He framed the cheques individually and hung them in a grid on the wall of the gallery. Each was offered for sale at the price that the cheque was originally written for, totalling £500.

As well as conceptual provocations, MacPhail also fascinated by simple geometric forms – crosses, lines, circles – and featured them in small sculptures made of everyday materials like unfinished wood and iron. Kettle’s Yard features one of these simple but suggestive sculptures: Construction, circa 1968. Just as Jim and Helen Ede wanted visitors to engage on a personal level with their art collection, MacPhail wanted his audience to engage with his sculptures by touching them, turning them, moving them.

In 1976 MacPhail moved to Orkney with Moberg and their four young sons, where he ran the local bookshop, Stromness Books and Prints, until he died. In 2018 Piers Art Centre hosted an exhibition of MacPhail’s sculptures, drawings and related material alongside photographs by his son Paul MacPhail.