When the Apple Ripens: Peter Howson at 65
27 May 2023 – 1 October 2023
City Art Centre, 2 Market Street, Edinburgh EH1 1DE
Tickets: £8.50 / £6.50 concessions
A major retrospective of one of the UK’s leading figurative painters, Peter Howson, opens at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre in May 2023. The exhibition will bring together around 100 works spanning the artist’s career, many never seen before in Scotland.
Howson has established a formidable reputation in the art world. His heroic portrayals of the mighty and the lowly confront subjects of human conflict and destruction that offer a penetrating insight into the human condition. His experiences of abuse—whether self-inflicted and substance-related, or the traumatic events of his childhood—have moulded his world view, and afforded him an affinity with individuals on the margins of society.
The City Art Centre’s Curatorial and Conservation Manager, David Patterson has been planning the exhibition since 2019, working closely with Howson and his London gallery. Howson has previously shown at the City Art Centre, when his critically acclaimed solo exhibition devoted to Scotland’s patron saint Andrew was displayed in 2007.
Patterson commented:
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see works assembled from public and private collections. This retrospective will illustrate Peter’s consummate skill in a range of media and explore his religious work as well as his graphic responses to recent global events including the covid pandemic and war in Ukraine.
Spanning four floors, the exhibition includes Peter’s early work, dominated by depictions of working-class Glasgow men – dossers, boxers, bodybuilders. The huge Heroic Dosser from the National Galleries of Scotland is a key painting from this period, and will hang alongside images of army life and nightclubs. In 1993 Peter was appointed Official War Artist in Bosnia by the Imperial War Museum, sponsored by The Times, and a section of the exhibition is devoted to this traumatic and harrowing experience.
The upper floors of the exhibition explore Peter’s more recent work. While in the depths of despair and his life at a very low ebb, Peter reached out to God. It was a life-changing moment. Many of the works exhibited on the second-floor gallery are inspired by his ongoing faith journey, including his Stations of the Cross series and numerous paintings never seen in public.
Peter continues to respond to contemporary events in his own unique way. The Covid 19 Pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine are themes he explores in his recent paintings and works on paper. The top floor of the exhibition includes seminal major works from the last decade, such as Prophecy and Babylon, as well as a new series of apocalyptic ink paintings, crammed with fearsome beasts and grotesque figures.
Reflecting on the purpose of art in today’s society, Howson commented:
Too much of art today is an intellectual game. Art needs to communicate, but it also has to retain a mystery. It cannot be dissected like an object in a science lab. It is a process of inspiration, technique and magic, and comes together and is completed in a way that doesn't need too much explanation. It is an open door into the wonder and mystery of existence.
Councillor Val Walker, Convener of Culture and Communities said:
Peter Howson is one of the most respected artists of his generation and we are very proud that the City Art Centre will host this major study of his work. Visitors will be able to discover Howson’s instantly recognisable works with many on display in Scotland for the first time. Celebrating Howson’s 50-year career, we will showcase over 100 pieces across four floors. It will be the highlight exhibition of 2023.
Emerging from Glasgow School of Art in the 1980s, Howson quickly proved his skill of capturing the maverick, the excessive, the non-conformist and his own personal understanding of the struggles of everyday life.
In 1992 he was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to record the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. He was appointed official British war artist for Bosnia in 1993 and in 1996 was awarded Doctor of Letters at The University of Strathclyde. His work is included in numerous national and international museum collections.
When the Apple Ripens: Peter Howson at 65: A Retrospective opens at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh on 27th May 2023 and runs until 1st October 2023. A new book Peter Howson: A Retrospective accompanies the exhibition, published by Sansom and Co.
Tickets can be purchased in advance at via Museums & Galleries Edinburgh website.