* ALISON WATT OBE FRSE RSA (SCOTTISH b. 1966),
YOUNG WOMAN
oil on board, signed; titled and dated 1993 label verso
image size 19.5cm x 14cm, overall size 39cm x 34cm
Framed and under glass.
Provenance: Acquired by the current owner from "Wee Gems" Exhibition 7th February - 4th March 1993 The Gatehouse Gallery, Glasgow (and gallery label verso).
Note: Born in Greenock in 1965 the daughter of painter James Watt RGI (1931 - ), Watt went on to study at the Glasgow School of Art, graduating in the late 1980s as part of a remarkable wave of neo-figurative painters; her peers including Stephen Conroy and Ken Currie. In 1987 Watt won the National Portrait Gallery's Annual Award, which secured her the representation of some of the country's leading galleries including Marlborough Fine Art in London. In 1997, a decade on, Watt began to introduce her now famous folds of fabric to the backdrops of her portraiture, an angle she continued to cultivate and evolve until she had moved away from the figure altogether. This has made her earlier figurative output all the more desirable, being, as it is, scarce to the open market. Though not strictly self-portraiture, Watt frequently drew upon her own appearance in her work, deliberately lending her figures a homogenised and androgynous look; the elongated oval heads distinguished by a long straight nose and full mouth with a pronounced cleft to the upper lip. The distinctive look of her figures is at once classical and entirely modern, and one can trace the influence of artists from Ingres in the painstaking finish of the works, to Freud in the restraint of the palette and the deliberate focus away from typical ideals of beauty. In 2012 the Scottish National Portrait Gallery purchased her Self-portrait painting (1986/7) from her private collection for £20,000, to celebrate its re-opening after a refurbishment.

Condition Report

Condition is very good overall, with no visible signs of restoration, damage, or known issues.