Alastair Gordon, 6th Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair

Who was Alastair Gordon, 6th Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair?

Alastair Ninian John Gordon, 6th Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair was a botanical artist and art critic who succeeded to a peerage later in life.

Gordon was the youngest of five children and the fourth son of Lord Dudley Gordon. He was raised at the family home of Haddo House and attended Harrow before entering Gray's School of Art. Commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1939, he served in the Middle East and North Africa before being invalided to Syria after an Irish Guardsman accidentally shot him in the shoulder. Returning to active service, he fought in Italy and North-West Europe before being demobilized as a staff captain in 1946. After leaving the services, he and fellow veteran and nobleman Earl Haig enrolled at the Camberwell School of Art.

It was at Camberwell that Gordon began to specialize in botanical paintings. Several exhibitions of his art would be held in London, New York, Chicago, and Sydney. In 1950, he married the ceramic sculptor Anne Barry. Gordon was also a member of the International Association of Art Critics and the modern art correspondent for Connoisseur magazine in the 1960s.