Murdo Macdonald is emeritus professor of the history of Scottish art at the University of Dundee. In his doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh he studied the relationships between art and science. He is a former editor of Edinburgh Review. His research has explored, among other things, the cultural revival milieu of Patrick Geddes, the art of the Scottish Gàidhealtachd, visual interpretations of the life and work of Robert Burns and the aesthetics of the cloud chamber photography of the Scottish physicist and Nobel laureate
C. T. R. Wilson. He has a long-standing interest in Ossian and art in an international context. He was appointed an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture in 2009, and an honorary fellow of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies in 2016.
