Born in Edinburgh in 1940, John was educated at the city’s Royal High School, where an interest in art and painting was planted by the late Nigel McIsaac, the school’s principal teacher of art. After a career in surveying, then in Local and Central Government service and latterly the church, he has now retired and returned to painting. He paints landscapes and still life in acrylic and water colour.

In 2004 he began painting seriously. His work is now shown by the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW). He has had four solo exhibitions - two in Colours Gallery, Dundas St. Edinburgh, one in the Peter Potter Gallery, Haddington and one in Alpha Art, Stockbridge Edinburgh, and a shared exibition with fellow artists Deborah Cameron and Mike McNiven in the Dundas Street Gallery. He has had paintings shown in mixed exhibitions in Edinburgh, Aberfeldy, and in galleries throughout Scotland and has paintings in private collections in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland and Australia.

His work is currently showing in the Aberfeldy Galley, Dunkeld St., Aberfeldy, the House of Menzies Gallery, Castle Menzies near Weem, Aberfeldy, Tore Gallery, Black Isle, near Inverness and the Marchmont Gallery, Edinburgh.

He paints full time in his studios in Edinburgh and Weem, in the heart of rural Perthshire, Scotland from where much of his inspiration for landscapes comes.