Craigie Aitchison CBE RSA RA was born in Edinburgh in 1926,  a Scottish painter best known for his paintings of the Crucifixion, Italian landscapes. His style is noted for the use of bright, flat colours, that concentrates the viewers focus on the subject.

He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1952 to 1954 under William Coldstream and Robert Medley. Fellow students included Michael Andrews, Tony Pacitti, Philip Sutton, Victor Willing, Paula Rego, Myles Murphy and Euan Uglow.

Aitchison was one of  Six Young Contemporaries at an exhibition at the Gimpel Fils gallery in 1954. His first solo exhibition was held at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London in 1959, and he held further solo exhibitions throughout the United Kingdom.

He was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1988.

Retrospectives of his work were held at the Serpentine Gallery in 1981, at Harewood House in 1994, the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow in 1996, Museum of Modern Art, Powys in 2001 and at the Royal Academy in London in 2003. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1999.

His work is held in the collections of the Tate Gallery, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, and the National Galleries of Scotland.