Howson's new show brings saint tale to life

Published on Wednesday 20 September 2006 12:41

EDINBURGH is to play host to a major exhibition by one of Scotland's best-known painters - whose fans include Madonna, David Bowie and Jack Nicholson.

Peter Howson, famed for his striking religious paintings, has created a string of new works celebrating Scotland's patron saint.

The City Art Centre on Market Street will be playing host to the exhibition by the artist for more than three months.

It will be the biggest-ever solo exhibition of work in Edinburgh by Howson, who was born in London but brought up in Prestwick, Ayrshire. Curators at the council-run gallery commissioned the artist to produce a major body of new work almost two years ago.

More than 100 works depicting Saint Andrew's life and death will feature in the exhibition, which opens on St Andrew's Day.

Mr Howson is a born-again Christian who famously produced nude portraits of Madonna and has also painted the Queen and football star Henrik Larsson.

A spokeswoman for the City Art Centre said: "We originally invited Peter Howson to consider tackling a painting on the theme of Saint Andrew.

"His response was to embark on a remarkable journey of discovery, which has combined personal literary research with a trip to Israel to see first hand the environment that the biblical disciple would have lived in.

"The result is a stunning new body of work."

Mr Howson shot to fame in the mid-1980s, and became the official British war artist in Bosnia. He battled drug and alcohol addiction before finding religion.

He said: "I was very pleased to be asked by the City Art Centre to produce new work, especially as the exhibition is completely devoted to St Andrew and I've not had much interest from Scottish galleries in recent years.

"There is a lot of ignorance about him and his life, even though he was one of the first disciples, and I'm hoping this exhibition will help address that, particularly with all this debate about whether we should have a national holiday to commemorate him, which I'm all in favour of.

"I went over to Israel twice as part of the research for the exhibition and much of the work that will be going on display was produced during those trips when I was retracing his steps."

Saint Andrew, one of the original apostles, was crucified by the Romans on a diagonal cross in Patras in southern Greece and buried there.

Around 300 years later, a monk called St Regulus was warned in a dream to remove the bones to the "ends of the earth" to keep them safe.

As far as the Greeks and Romans were concerned, Scotland was as near to the world's end as you could get, so some of his remains were brought here.

St Regulus brought the relics ashore at what is now St Andrews, and a chapel was built to house the bones, followed in 1160 by a cathedral.

Andrew: Portrait of a Saint, will open at the City Art Centre, on Market Street, from November 30-March 4.