Fabio Barraclough

British academic

Barraclough was the son of a Yorkshire father who worked in Madrid's Chamber of Commerce and of a Catalan mother. He taught fine art and sculpture at Rugby School, where colleagues considered him "highly entertaining, a most unorthodox and highly gifted" teacher.

He established himself during the 1960s and early 1970s as an authority on sculpture, publishing in academic journals and becoming a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

In 1974 Barraclough was appointed to a three-year contract as professor of fine arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. His colleagues there did not think well of his work, and he was transferred to a job at an associated gallery.