Image: Compass Gallery, Glasgow
Compass Gallery in Glasgow is spotlighting Peter Howson OBE in a presentation that brings together paintings and lithographs by one of Scotland’s best-known figurative painters. The gallery’s announcement identifies works including 'Barracks', 'Male Portrait (blue)', 'Two Men Wrestling' and 'Man with cigarette, 1982', and places them within a career defined by drawing, portraiture and scenes shaped by Glasgow street life and direct experience.
Howson studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1975 to 1977, then returned in 1979 to complete a Master’s. Compass Gallery notes that he was made Artist in Residence at the University of St Andrews in 1985 and taught part-time at Glasgow School of Art. His public profile was further established when the Imperial War Museum commissioned him to record the conflict in the former Yugoslavia in 1992, and when he became official British War Artist for Bosnia in 1993. The University of Strathclyde awarded him a Doctor of Letters in 1996.
The gallery describes Howson as one of Scotland’s leading figurative painters and points to the draughtsmanship that underpins his work. According to the gallery text, he uses drawing to dramatise the character of working people at work, play, sport and leisure, and many of his paintings draw direct inspiration from the streets of Glasgow where he grew up. The same source says that his paintings are marked by authenticity rooted in personal experience and by his ability to portray extremes of gloom and brilliant light.
Compass Gallery also situates Howson within the wider history of Scottish painting through his role as one of the central figures in 'The New Glasgow Boys', alongside Ken Currie, Steven Campbell and Adrian Wiszniewski, who studied with him at Glasgow School of Art in the 1980s. The gallery’s website says he took part in Compass Gallery’s New Generation Show in 1981 and has been a regular exhibitor with Compass and Gerber Fine Art throughout his career. It also records that he received the Arthur Andersen Purchase Award at Compass Gallery’s 'Barras' Exhibition for Glasgow’s Mayfest in 1986.
The exhibition material on Compass’s website shows a selection that includes 'Barracks', from 1982, described there as gouache and charcoal; 'Male Portrait (blue)', an oil on canvas; 'Two Men Wrestling', a pastel; and 'Man with cigarette, 1982', a lithograph in an edition of 50. Other works listed on the page include 'Female Nude', 'Head (green)', 'Sore Back (Old Man Standing)', 'Nude (blue)', 'A Christmas Party', 'Head', 'Moth, 1986', 'Mrs', 'Self Portrait with African Masks' and 'Standing Male Nude, 1982'.
The gallery’s artist page also notes that Howson’s work has been shown in major exhibitions worldwide, including 'Eye on Europe' at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and 'The Naked Portrait' at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2007. It adds that he had a major retrospective at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, in 2023 titled 'When the Apple Ripens: Peter Howson at 65'. The same source says his work is held in numerous private and public collections, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Tate in London; the Victoria & Albert Museum; the British Museum; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
Compass Gallery is a not-for-profit charity at 178 West Regent Street in Glasgow and says regular gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 5pm, and Saturday, 11am to 4pm. The gallery also says it offers video consultations, secure remote transactions and delivery to any location.
