Euan Uglow was a British painter. Born in London in 1932, Uglow began his artistic education at the Camberwell School of Art between the years of 1948-1950. During this time, Uglow was under the instruction of several eminent British artists of the time, whose work proved to be of great influence to the young artist. Uglow completed his traditional artistic education at the Slade School of Art, where he graduated in 1954 and returned to for some time as a part-time teacher. His first solo exhibition was held in 1961 at the Beaux Arts Gallery, London. The artist was propelled to fame a year later in 1962 when his participation in an Arts Council exhibition in Bradford, Yorkshire was contested by a local councillor who deemed Uglow’s nude paintings indecent. Despite his sudden rise to public awareness, Uglow would remain an artist who avoided both publicity and honours, having declined an offer to become a member of the Royal Academy early on in his career. The artist would become known for his methodical method of working, which often involved calculating mathematically exact proportions with which to display his subjects.

Though his artwork, most notably his nude studies, often took some time to complete Uglow experienced great success and participated in several group exhibitions throughout Britain and the United States, and in cities as far afield as New Delhi and Jerusalem. Uglow was an exceptionally well-travelled artist, not only exhibiting in but working in several countries such as Turkey, Morocco, India and China. In 1980, Uglow became the first artist-in-residence at the College of Art in Cyprus, producing several rich landscapes in response to his new environment which explored colour and geometric forms in a starkly different way to the often muted, but exact, nude portraits most celebrated throughout his career. Uglow died in London in 2000. His work can be seen today in the collections of the Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art among several others.