ALASDAIR GRAY (SCOTTISH 1934-2019)
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST CAROLE GIBBONS
Mixed media on brown paper
40cm x 32cm (15,75in x 12.5in)
Carole Gibbons was born in Glasgow in 1935, and continues her art practice from her studio there to this day. A student of the Glasgow School of Art and member of The Young Glasgow Group collective, Gibbons was the first living female artist to be exhibited at Glasgow's Third Eye Centre. Despite a long and critically well-regarded career, with works featured in many institutional collections around the UK, Gibbons' work is only now really achieving the recognition it deserves. She was recently included in Tate's critically acclaimed exhibition Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990. In 2023 her solo show at Celine, Glasgow was rated in Frieze Magazine's top ten shows of 2023. She has exhibited in New York and London in recent years, having recently been taken on by Hales Gallery, London, who are exposing her work to a new generation of collectors. As Hales note in their artist's biography, she has long been championed by artists Lucy Stein, Andrew Cranston, poet JF Hendry, art historian Susannah Thompson and her friend, the writer and artist Alasdair Gray. Here we see Gray sketching her portrait as a young woman and artist - her hands full of the tools of her craft, her eye considering the subject of her drawing, lost in concentration.