Seonaid Robertson (1912–2008): the transformation of 'chaotic experience' through arts education

Seonaid Robertson (1912–2008) was a school teacher, arts advisor, lecturer and author writing about arts education. Her life-long focus was on how arts education supported young people’s transition from childhood to adolescence. She studied at Edinburgh Art School and by the early 1940s, under the influence of Herbert Read, had developed a strong interest in ceramics and the therapeutic aspects of arts education and psychoanalysis. She studied psychology at the University of London after World War Two but reacted against much of the mainstream thinking of the period. She preferred to focus on ways children could make a connection with their own cultural heritage and heal themselves after traumatic experiences.