Iain MacNab was born at Iloilo in the Philippines on 21 October 1890. He was the son of an official of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. He was educated in Edinburgh and grew up in Scotland. From 1911 to 1914, he studied accountancy (which would later stand him in good stead in a number of subsequent administrative posts), then served in the army during the Great War, until 1916, when he was wounded and invalided out. In 1917 he commenced studies at the Glasgow School of Art. He then moved to Heatherley’s School of Art in London. After a brief period spent studying in Paris, he returned to Heatherley’s, serving as their joint principal in the period 1919-25. In 1925 MacNab married Helen Wingrave and purchased a property at 33 Warwick Square in Pimlico, London. He had some highly developed ideas of his own about art teaching and decided to put them into effect by establishing the Grosvenor School of Modern Art at Warwick Square that same year. By advertising in The Studio, the school attracted a wide cross-section of students from across the globe (including the Swiss artist Lill Tschudi) and became a leading force in the production and promotion of modernistic printmaking works, while teaching a solid foundation of art history, each artist lecturing on their own speciality. Claude Flight lectured on the art of lino cutting and his acolyte, the young Sybil Andrews performed the role of school secretary. The architect Cyril Power lectured on ‘The Form and Structure of Buildings, Historical Ornament and Symbolism and Outline of Architectural Styles’ and the Sunday Times art critic Frank Rutter on ‘Modern Painters from Cézanne to Picasso’. The school encouraged student’s individuality and allowed them to join and study for whatever length of time they chose. Three Antipodeans; Ethel Spowers, Dorrit Black and Eveline Syme were immensely impressed by what they learnt and became instrumental in organising exhibitions and promoting the school back home in Australia. Notable students at Warwick Square would include: Billie Waters, Emmy Bridgwater, Margaret Barnard, Alison Baily Rehfisch, Rachel Reckitt, Ronald Grierson, Eileen Mayo and the sisters Winifred and Alison McKenzie. Flight arranged annual exhibitions of Grosvenor School artists’ linocuts at the Redfern and the Ward Galleries, as well as touring exhibitions to the provincial galleries. The necessary simplicity and boldness of design required by the linocut technique characterised both his own and his pupils’ work and exerted an important influence on the artistic tastes of later generations. Flight mounted the first exhibition of British linocuts in 1929. It was declared an outstanding success and prints were purchased by key collections, including the British Museum and the V&A. The lino cuts of the Grosvenor School enjoyed a brilliant, but all too brief popularity. By the mid-1930s interest was waning and the final exhibition took place at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1939. MacNab ran the school from 1925, until a combination of conscription and the Blitz forced its closure in 1940. In the early 1930s, MacNab was much involved with the Samson Press, founded and run by Flora Lucy Margaret Grierson and Joan Mary Shelmerdine. He executed 29 wood-engravings for their first illustrated book, Nicht at Eenie or The Bairns’ Parnassus, a collection of Scottish children’s verses and lullabies. That book marked the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship and several of his pupils later joined the group of artists commissioned by Samson. In 1938 he published The Student’s Book of Wood Engraving. His book Wood Engraving was published in 1947. His work demonstrated clarity of form and composition in a vaguely Vorticist manner. MacNab exhibited at all the major public venues, including the Royal Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Glasgow Institute and the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil, of which he served as president for nearly 20 years. MacNab died in London on 24 December 1967. MacNab was one of the most important figures in the early 20th-century revival of wood engraving. He developed an original and recognisable style, and his work is noted for its technical excellence. Examples work may be found in the collections of the V&A, Manchester City Art Galleries, the British Museum and at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. During the 1970s, collectors and curators began rediscovering the work of the almost forgotten Grosvenor School of Modern Art and since that time, prices have soared.