Bruce McLean is a Scottish sculptor, filmmaker, and painter. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1961 to 1963 and at Saint Martin's School of Art from 1963 to 1966, where he and others rebelled against what appeared to be the formalist academicism of his teachers, including Anthony Caro and Phillip King. In 1965, he abandoned conventional studio production in favour of impermanent sculptures using materials such as water, along with performances of a generally satirical nature directed against the art world. When, in 1972, he was offered an exhibition at the Tate Gallery, he opted for a 'retrospective' he titled King for a Day, which lasted only one day. From the mid-1970s, while continuing to mount occasional performances, McLean has turned increasingly to painting, sculpture, and film work. In 1985, McLean won the John Moores Painting Prize. Since retiring from his professorship of painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, he has taken on a large studio in the west of London, where he has been making increasingly large paintings and sculptural film works.

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