Robert Houston RSW (1981–1942) was born in Kilbirnie, Ayrshire and studied at Glasgow School of Art. He specialised in landscapes of the coasts and lochans of the west of Scotland and western isles. He was also a noted aquatintist and designed and executed railway posters, which particularly suited his sense of design and use of solid colour.
Houston was elected a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1936. He exhibited widely, showing at the Royal Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours, and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.
