 David first enrolled in the Fine Art course at Edinburgh, his time divided between History of Art at the University of Edinburgh and Drawing and Painting at the Art College.Tellingly, after a year, he moved solely to the Art College and to painting.McClure studied at Edinburgh College of Art from the late 1940s, where his contemporaries included Elizabeth Blackadder, John Houston and David Michie and where students came under the influences of the major Edinburgh figures of the time such as Anne Redpath, William Gillies, John Maxwell, William MacTaggart and Robert Henderson Blyth.