Ian Carruthers will be remembered for his major contributions to agrarian development in the world's poorer countries - particularly in irrigation economics - and for the unique external degrees in Agricultural Development which he did so much to set up at Wye College. "My art is all in the emotion," he said.James KirkupGerardo Rueda Salaberry, painter and sculptor: born Madrid 23 April 1926; died Madrid 25 May 1996.. The exhibition went on to Seville the following year, and in 1992 Rueda also showed a personal collection at the Fourth El Cairo Biennale, during which he was awarded the Medalla de Honor Especial. This was just one of the many distinguished awards presented to the artist during his lifetime, culminating in 1995 with his election as permanent member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.It was in March 1996 that Gerardo Rueda had the first of three cerebral attacks, when he attended in Valencia an anthology of his works organised by IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno), which he declared open by saying: "I always have to have direct contact with art, to bring myself to it without any intermediaries of schools or theories." That was the young self-taught beginner speaking out frankly, just as he used to do when telling anyone who would listen that he did not understand Dubuffet or Matisse. No one who visits Cuenca can ever forget the liberating atmosphere of this unique museum and its exquisitely hung (in every sense) works of art, the most impressive collection of abstractions of all periods in Europe.This was not the only public work Rueda undertook for Cuenca. Between 1990 and 1991, again possibly inspired by the work of Soulages and his semi-geometrical windows at Sainte-Foy abbey in Conques (Aveyron), Gerardo Rueda combined his passion for geometrical forms and sculpture and architecture in the construction of the noble windows of the cathedral of Cuenca, which remain for all to see as one of his major achievements.In 1991 in Madrid Rueda participated in a collective exhibition, "El Prado visto per doce artistas contemporaneos" ("The Prado Viewed by Twelve Contemporary Artists"), which brought an unusual breath of visionary self- expression to the contemplation of that great museum's most celebrated works.

This led to the creation of sculptures in wood or metal in the form of relief carvings during the 1970s.Rueda never lost the playful, innocent spirit of the self-made artist, and on several occasions one could see him having fun with the mounting of window displays for important department stores like El Corte Ingles, and in 1991, out of a score of chosen contestants, he won first prize for the design of the entrance doors to the Spanish Pavilion at the Exposicion Universal in Seville, a monumental work that made his name and his art known to thousands of people who had never heard of him before.But he is best known for a truly adventurous, unique architectural and artistic undertaking in the city of Cuenca where, with his friends and fellow artists Fernando Zobel and Gustavo Torner, he founded the first gallery of abstract art in Europe, housed in a visionary assemblage of casas colgadas or "hanging houses". All through the Sixties his work was exhibited in the great galleries of Europe, in individual or group shows, and in 1962 he had a retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London.His carefully constructed, perfectly balanced geometric assemblages were strengthened by the way he applied his paint, often with a bold palette, using a knife. He gradually freed himself from what might be perceived as over-rigid composition and, perhaps under the influence of Pierre Soulages and Yves Klein, released all his painterly energies in large monochrome works in various shades of grey, in black or royal blue. These were saved from monotony by accidental reliefs and various deliberate forms of surface animation, creating expanses of vital energy that occupied an almost sculptural space in the frame. He participated in the second Biennale Hispano-Americana in Havana in 1953, and in exhibitions in Caracas and Bogota. His affection for, and gratitude towards Latin America lasted all his life, and at the time of his death a large retrospective of his works, "Trayectos" ("Pathway"), is going the rounds of all the leading art museums of South America.In 1960 Rueda's work was displayed at the Biennale in Venice, and while in Rome after the exhibition he became interested in the work of Giorgio Morandi and his near-abstract still-lifes. Gerardo Rueda Salaberry, to give him his full name, intended to become a lawyer, and studied law in Madrid before suddenly deciding he wanted to be a painter.

He began painting landscapes in an Impressionist style derived from the French masters he so much admired, but soon moved on to more contemporary styles, influenced by Klee and Nicolas de Stael, and had his first one-man show, "Collages y dibujos abstractos" ("Collages and abstract drawings"), in 1954 at the Madrid gallery Abril. Before that he had participated in group exhibitions with contemporaries like Antoni Tapies, Manuel Millares and Manolo Rivera, exponents of abstract arte povera using cheap materials such as sack-cloth, plastic and pinboard. Rueda's abstractions were usually refined, delicate, elegant expressions of his love of order, that still showed that "informal" quality of paint in keeping with a respect for "the obvious, the clear, the controlled".He began exhibiting abroad, particularly in Latin America, that refuge of so many Spaniards during the Franco regime. Self-taught artists possess a special spirit of curiosity and invention that often stays with them and manifests itself in even their most mature and sophisticated creations. The intangible legacy of example and affectionate guidance that he left to his students of all ages can be illustrated by his own words from a 1970 lecture to the Australian Biochemical Society: "For science is more than the search for truth, more than a challenging game, more than a profession. In 1962 Ogston was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and the University of Uppsala (where Svedberg and Tiselius founded the field of physical biochemistry) in 1977 awarded him the honorary degree of MedD.The tangible legacy that Ogston left to the scientific world by finding simple solutions to complex problems is clear from the published record.

After his retirement from this office in 1978, he continued to help others by serving on and eventually chairing the Council of Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham, until 1984.The Royal Society recognised Ogston's outstanding contributions to chemistry by awarding him the Davy Medal in 1986, and he was made an honorary fellow of Balliol (1969) and Trinity (1978) Colleges, Oxford, and of the Biology Department of York University (1990). He moved to the Australian National University as the Professor of Physical Biochemistry - a field which was the precursor of modern molecular biology, in which he was one of the earliest protagonists, in which physical methods are used to study biological processes.He stayed in Australia until 1970, when he returned to Oxford to serve with distiction as President of Trinity College (over the wall from Balliol); the Trinity College residential building in Rawlinson Road, Oxford, is named "Ogston House" after him. Thus the solution of a complex anomaly, observed in 1935 (while at the London Hospital) when blood proteins were centrifuged, was shown 10 years later by Ogston and his student J.P. Johnston to be due to a predictable change in the concentrations of moving particles when they are slowed down by their surroundings. This Johnston-Ogston effect is of such generality that the same principles can predict the changes in the spacing of cars as they pass along a road with zones having different speed restrictions.Another of Ogston's elegantly simple solutions to complex problems, in this case related to the strange behaviour of mixtures of proteins and long chain carbohydrates, subsequently proved relevant to the permeability of paper and gels, and even to the growth of roots.In 1960, Ogston began what he sometimes described as the period of his life devoted mainly to helping others carry out their academic vocations, already presaged by his serving from 1955 to 1959 as chairman of the editorial board of the Biochemical Journal. After a brief time as a Freedom Research Fellow at the London Hospital studying blood proteins, he was awarded his DPhil (Oxon) in 1937, and began what was to become a period of over 20 years as a Fellow of his old college, tutoring in Physiology and lecturing in the Department of Biochemistry.During the Second World War he was a member of the Ministry of Supply Research Team (1939-43) and of the Inter-Service Research Bureau (1943-44), where his physical chemical skills were used in attempts to develop methods of inactivating some of the awful poison gases used in the First World War.After the war, Ogston resumed his academic studies, which seemed always to be characterised by his ability to arrive at unexpectedly simple solutions to difficult problems. Typically, Ogston was somehow slightly embarrassed by the importance others placed on this work, because, as he would diffidently explain, the idea only took him a few moments to conceptualise.Born in 1911, Sandy Ogston was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Brackenbury Scholar and gained a First in Chemistry in 1933.