Alasdair Gray: City Recorder
Date: 27 August 2011 – 10 June 2012
Space: Gallery 2

Highlights from Glasgow Museums’ collection of drawings, prints and paintings by the celebrated Scottish artist and writer Alasdair Gray, featuring many works from his portrait of the City of Glasgow in 1977.

In 1977, Elspeth King, the curator of the People’s Palace, was concerned that the museum didn’t have any artworks depicting Glasgow’s people and places beyond the early 20th century. She commissioned Alasdair Gray to become the city’s “artist recorder”, documenting contemporary Glasgow in visual form. In his year on the job he produced around 33 works for the Palace of typical or well-known Glaswegians going about their daily lives, as well as buildings and street scenes and together these form a portrait of Glasgow at that time. The pictures provide a unique insight into a period when much of the old industrial Glasgow was being demolished.

Artists: Alasdair Gray

Links:
• Talitha Kotzé, ‘Alasdair Gray: City Recorder’
• Jenni Davidson, ‘City Recorder: Alasdair Gray’s drawings for the People’s Palace go on display in Glasgow’, 15 November 2011