A Life In Pictures

by Alasdair Gray

Overview

ALASDAIR GRAY is Scotland’s best known polymath. Born in 1934 in Glasgow, he graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1957 then lived by part-time teaching, painting and writing plays for TV and radio until 1981. His first novel, the loosely autobiographical, blackly fantastic LANARK, opened new imaginative territory for such varied writers as Jonathan Coe, A.L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway and Irvine Welsh. It led Anthony Burgess to call him “the most important Scottish writer since Sir Walter Scott”. His other published books include 1982 JANINE, POOR THINGS (winner of the Whitbread Award), THE BOOK OF PREFACES, THE ENDS OF OUR TETHERS and OLD MEN IN LOVE. In this book, with reproductions of his murals, portraits, landscapes and illustrations, Gray tells of the failures and successes which have led to his pictures being accepted by a new generation of visual artists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857860767
Publisher:	Canongate Books
Publication date:	10/22/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	91 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Born in 1934, Alasdair Gray graduated in design and mural painting from the Glasgow School of Art. Since 1981, when Lanark was published by Canongate, he authored, designed and illustrated seven novels, several books of short stories, a collection of his stage, radio and TV plays and a book of his visual art, A Life in Pictures. In November 2019, he received a Lifetime Achievement award by the Saltire Society. He died in December 2019, aged eighty-five.

Editorial Reviews

There is the sense . . . of a warm and eccentric intelligence at work . . . The wry humour, at one of the book's sadder moments, exemplifies the winning tone of this absorbing 'autopictography', whose high production values and coffee-table heft should see it purchased for many a bibliophile come Christmas.

Spectator

A necessary genius.

Ali Smith

[Gray] muses on his life story with wry humour, creating a rich and colourful compendium that is utterly original.

Good Book Guide

Just because my colleagues have already had their say on the subject, I am not going to let that stop me recommending it as a fine 35 worth, packed with terrific images and accompanied by his inimitable characteristic narration.

Herald - Keith Bruce

A master at rummaging in the dustbins of the mind.

Daily Telegraph

Gray is a true original, a twentieth century William Blake

Observer

Surely there is no more handsome book published this year

Guardian

A great writer, perhaps the greatest writer living in Britain today.

Will Self

A thick, gorgeous account of is life from early childhood to the present.

The Skinny

Well worth the wait, A LIfe in Pictures offers a rich and much-needed guide to the work of arguably Scotland's greatest living artist.

Literary Review

A cultural gem to behold, this long overdue publication will delight both established fans and those who have just discovered the artist.

Business Destinations

A detailed and wonderfully realised 'autopictography', it reveals the idiosyncratic genius of a man who has come to embody all that's good about artistic cross-pollination and creative thinking

Big Issue

Marvellous . . . a pleasure to hold and well as to read

Times Literary Supplement

A truly remarkable visual and literary biography . . . [from] Glasgow's resident genius

Herald

As wonderful and unorthodox an autobiography from this subversive and rambunctious magnus of Scottish fiction as you would expect.

Metro

A Life in Pictures is a truly remarkable visual and literary biography...[by]...Glasgow's resident genius.

The Glasgow Herald