* IAN HUGHES (SCOTTISH 1958 - 2014),
BATHERS BY THE HAVEL (GERMANY)
acrylic on paper, signed and titled
image size 71cm x 97cm, overall size 85cm x 110cm
Mounted, framed and under glass.
Label verso: The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh (1989).
Note: Painter, art therapist, photographer and installations artist, born in Glasgow. Hughes studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, 1976–80. For much of the 1980s he chose to work with the mentally sick, in the art therapy department at Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, then at Royal Edinburgh Psychiatric Hospital. He had his first one-man show at Andrew Brown's 369 Gallery, Edinburgh in 1985. Famously one of the seventeen artists in the landmark Vigorous Imagination Exhibition (1987) with four paintings, along with Howson, Currie, Wiszniewski, Conroy, Colvin, Mach, Braham, Gwen Hardie and others. In 1988–9 he was invited (above his peers) to be artist-in-residence at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; had a major and celebrated solo show there in 1989 and in that year started to show widely on the continent. Multiple solo shows in London, Russia, Poland, France, Germany and Spain. Several large museums, as well as the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, hold twenty-seven examples of his work in the UK. Many more in prestigious public collections around Europe and in the US. Most of his paintings were deeply influenced by his time with the mentally troubled which can be sad and disturbing but nonetheless powerful. Hughes was an artist's artist and he worked with scant regard for what might be popular or "commercial". Perhaps unsurprisingly at the time, his work was more popular in London and mainland Europe than it was in Scotland. Despite this, his work was admired greatly by art critics and his contemporaries, several of whom were his close friends. He won many of the major awards and prizes at public exhibitions in Scotland. Notable private collectors included Sean Connery, Peter Gabriel, Marti Pellow, Madonna, Bob Geldof and others. Known corporate collections include: Shell Investments, Standard Life, Coutts & Co, The Fleming Collection, The Rowett Research Centre and the BBC (Glasgow).