Alasdair Grant Taylor (1936–2007) was a Scottish artist and

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Life

Alasdair Taylor was born in

Ross-shire Ross-shire (; gd, Siorrachd Rois) is a historic county in the Scottish Highlands. The county borders Sutherland to the north and Inverness-shire to the south, as well as having a complex border with Cromartyshire – a county consisting o ...

and attended Lesmahagow High School. He trained as an artist at the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...

, subsequently living in

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and

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

. In 1967 he moved to Portencross, Ayrshire, where he lived reclusively with his wife Annelise and their daughters Anna and Jean.The Loop
, North Ayrshire's Cultural Magazine, #19, Summer 2007 In March 2005 he suffered a stroke and had to leave his home.Artist suffers stroke
, ''Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald'', 23 February 2006 He died in 2007.

Work

Taylor's formative influences included the COBRA group in

, especially

Asger Jorn Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. He was born in Vejrum, in the northwest c ...

, whom his wife knew. In most of his

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

s before the mid-1960s, the paint is thickly applied. After this time, he used oil more thinly. There are extremes of colour from bright to sombre. His nude drawings and paintings of nudes are mostly of his wife. His collages used

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

and newspaper cuttings combined with brush strokes, influenced by

Dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

and early Cubism. He made abstract oil paintings with brush,

palette knife A palette knife is a blunt tool used for mixing or applying paint, with a flexible steel blade. It is primarily used for applying paint to the canvas, mixing paint colors, adding texture to the painted surface, paste, etc., or for marbling, decora ...

, spray can and other techniques: some of these are intended to be hung in groups and named after the seasons. Sculptures were created from

driftwood __NOTOC__ Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea, lake, or river by the action of winds, tides or waves. In some waterfront areas, driftwood is a major nuisance. However, the driftwood provides shelter and fo ...

which Taylor collected from the

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc sh ...

near Portencross, then carved and partly painted or varnished. He made use of stones similarly. He filled notebooks with ideas mingled with sketches in pen or

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

and did ink drawings on the blank pages of art books he had been given. The

Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the ...

has given a grant to Street Level Photoworks to catalogue and digitise Taylor's work.

Alasdair Gray and James Kelman

Taylor's work is the subject of an ongoing promotion by his friends

Alasdair Gray Alasdair James Gray (28 December 1934 – 29 December 2019) was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, ''Lanark: A Life in Four Books, Lanark'' (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays ...

and

James Kelman James Kelman (born 9 June 1946) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist. His novel '' A Disaffection'' was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1989. Kelman won ...

to raise it out of obscurity that they argue is undeserved. Taylor also featured in ''Portrait of a painter'', "the story of an artist ... who persists in his painting though he remains unrecognized and unrewarded", in Gray's 1985 short story anthology '' Lean Tales'', co-written with James Kelman and Agnes Owens. He was also among those whose profile as visual artists Gray attempted to raise in his collaborative ''5 Scottish Artists'' exhibition in 1986.''The Arts of Alasdair Gray'', Robert Crawford, Thom Nairn, Edinburgh University Press, 1991,
Online
''The Two Alasdairs'' was an exhibition which ran at the Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh Gallery from 22 November 2008 to 10 January 2009. It celebrated the art of Alasdair Gray and Alasdair Taylor, and their long friendship. The exhibition included a

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

interview An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...

with Taylor by BBC Scotland's W. Gordon Smith (in the

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

TV series "Scope" in 1974).

Exhibitions

*''5 Scottish Artists' Retrospective Show'' - McLellan Art Galleries,

, and Talbot Rice Art Centre,

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, 1986 *''Alasdair Taylor, a Retrospective'' - Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine, 2007 *''The Two Alasdairs: Alasdair Gray & Alasdair Taylor'' - Mackintosh Gallery,

, November 2008 to January 2009

References

External links

Alasdair Gray's blogReview of ''The Two Alasdairs'' by Barry Didcock
in the

Sunday Herald The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre- ...

, 30 Nov 2008
Review of ''The Two Alasdairs'' by Duncan Macmillan
in

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

, 19 Dec 2008 *https://www.alasdairtaylor.art/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor Scottish sculptors Scottish male sculptors 20th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters 21st-century Scottish painters 21st-century Scottish male artists Modern artists 1934 births 2007 deaths Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art 20th-century British sculptors 20th-century Scottish male artists