Still Life with Bottles and Open Drawer, 1982-83
Still Life with Bottles and Open Drawer would have been painted in Alexander Goudie’s studio in our family home in Glasgow. My father’s elaborate and richly painted still lifes were extremely sought after. In a series of paintings in the mid 1980s he often took inspiration from the objects that surrounded him in his studio – the tools of his trade. They are, in themselves, very humble items; worn brushes, a jar of white pigment, an old copper saucepan which he would use to prepare size, when priming his canvasses. But in the way that Alexander Goudie painted them, each object is afforded an extraordinary, sculptural presence. The handling of the paint displays a mastery of confident and economical brushwork. Just enough detail is given to summon up each object and the palette of colours deployed is both subtle and precisely modulated. The overall effect is an image which, for me, resembles a kind of painter’s altar – a profound and powerful tribute to the artist’s craft. Lachlan Goudie
About Private: Alexander Goudie
Alexander Goudie (1933–2004) is widely regarded as one of Scotland’s greatest figurative painters, an artist whose exuberant personality, technical brilliance and devotion to the traditions of European painting shaped a remarkable and highly individual career. Born in Paisley in 1933, he enrolled at Glasgow School of Art at just sixteen, where he studied under influential tutors including David Donaldson. A gifted but outspoken student, Goudie immersed himself in the study of the great masters, particularly Manet, Velázquez and Van Dyck, developing an understanding of paint as both material and language. His training emphasised draughtsmanship, tonal control and the “alchemy of paint”, the tension between line and colour, and the ability to transform lived experience into art.
