Who is Alasdair Gray?
A genius Uncle
Alasdair Gray is a creative polymath best known for his novels Lanark, Poor Things and 1982, Janine and his murals in the Oran Mor, Ubiquitous Chip and Hillhead Underground.
Alasdair (right) at the 1981 launch of Lanark with friend Malcolm Hood (left) who appears in 2 of the Lanark book prints
He’s often described as a genius and regularly compared to William Blake. He’s also Kat and Tracy’s uncle and his work had a profound impact on Anita. This is our attempt to share something of who Alasdair Gray is to us.
A favourite family photo of Alasdair Gray
Alasdair on a day trip on the Clyde in 2003
Powered by creativity
“I am obsessive: I find life miserable if I don’t do a certain amount of writing and / or painting because these activities make me feel I am working well for people. Even if nobody is there, I feel, when working, that I deserve to be loved, and can respect myself, even if nobody else does.”
Oran Mor murals by Alasdair Gray and many helping hands (photo @MarkWildPhotography)
Alasdair Gray was powered by creativity. He was born in Glasgow in 1934 and lived there almost all his life. But Alasdair’s creative energy made him a ‘citizen in the world’s Republic of Letters’ and pictures. And while Alasdair’s body stayed mostly in Scotland, his imagination roamed the world.
1st Edition cover of Lanark by Alasdair Gray
Alasdair’s most famous quote which he adapted from Dennis Lee and reused regularly
Imaginative escapism
“Most parents kill our infantile faith that we can have anything we want. Mum and Dad left me sure I could make anything I wanted in words and pictures.”
A young Alasdair Gray at work in 1967
Asthma and eczema were ongoing issues for Alasdair and he frequently found life difficult. Art and literature offered escape into ‘a wonderland, a place of exciting adventure’. And he continued to escape into imaginative worlds throughout his life.
A detail from Alasdair’s 1953 interpretation of the Robert Burns poem Tam O’Shanter
Illustration from The Start of the Axletree in Unlikely Stories Mostly by Alasdair Gray
A life of art
Doing paid work other than writing or painting was something Alasdair found almost impossible. He often described himself as an artist first and foremost but he also wrote stories, drama, poetry and non-fiction throughout his life.
He had periods of extreme poverty when he slept in whatever building he was decorating. And he famously painted his murals in the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant in Glasgow in return for hot meals. These early designs were sent to Tracy as part of a letter in 1980.
Sketch of Alasdair’s plan for the Ubiquitous Chip staircase mural 1980 (from a series of 5)
“The actual wall-painting has more people in it than the sketch suggests, mainly copied from the waitresses who work there... I’m copying them from colour photographs, which is less satisfying.
PS. The people in the mural-sketches wear clothes, in the real thing.”
Sketch of Alasdair’s plan for the Ubiquitous Chip end wall mural 1980 (from a series of 5)
Alasdair Gray’s updated murals at the Ubiquitous Chip looking downstairs 2022
Money came in more easily after Alasdair’s first novel Lanark was finally published in 1981, nearly 30 years after he started it. But it went out just as quickly, as Alasdair gave it away and overspent on his creative projects.
Alasdair Gray’s family favourites
Alasdair Gray died in Glasgow on 29th December 2019, 1 day after his 85th birthday. He described his life as an artist and a writer in detail in A Life In Pictures and Of Me And Others. And aspects of his life found their way into many of his books, in particular Lanark which is strongly autobiographical.
A Life in Pictures by Alasdair Gray
Of Me And Others by Alasdair Gray
The family dedication in Of Me And Others
Alasdair wrote too many books for us to describe in detail. These are just a few of Alasdair’s books that have a special place in our own hearts and lives.
Explore more…
Select each book to find read the personal stories behind them…
Inspirational Alasdair Gray
Alasdair was a creative inspiration to writers, artists and thinkers of all kinds including us! These are just a few of the things Alasdair Gray is to us...
Uncle Al
To Kat and Tracy, Alasdair Gray is Uncle Alasdair. An exiting, unpredictable relative who turned up as unexpectedly as his presents and was always ready to welcome us into his life whenever we were in Glasgow.
Digit Al
Alasdair Gray is often seen as a quintessentially analogue creator. But to us there’s something inherently Digit Al about the cut and paste way Alasdair worked, the multi-media work he created and his vast, hyperlinked brain.
Lyric Al
Alasdair is often described as a polymath and there are no hard lines between the different genres in his creative output. He wrote poetry throughout his life and his novels can be as Lyric Al as his verses and the curving lines of his visual art.
Inspiration Al
Alasdair is Inspiration Al to so many of us through his work and as a person. His art changed our perception of Glasgow. And his humanity and compassion is as inspiring as his endless creativity. He was very far from perfect. But he’s definitely special.
Exception Al
Alasdair’s take on the world is always Exception Al. He is as conscious of his own frailties and limitations as he is compassionate to those of others. And challenging our man-made norms is a fundamental characteristic of his work.
Fantastic Al
Alasdair Gray and his work are Fantastic Al in so many ways. His love of creating and inhabiting imaginary worlds as a child never left him. And he shares his fantastic visions with all of us in his art.
Politic Al
Alasdair and his work are profoundly and unapologetically Politic Al. He was a lifelong socialist and supporter of Scottish Independence. A relentless critic of the ways in which we fail ourselves and others. And a determined optimist in believing we can be and do better.
Monument Al
The scale and settings of Alasdair’s work may vary but his themes are Monument Al. His work is an ongoing creative conversation with the big names of art and literature. And he’s always interested in seeing the big picture and exploring the big questions and the big ideas. (photo @MarkWildPhotography)
Alasdair in his own words
This is Alasdair Gray in his own words… composed by Scott Twynholm for Kevin Cameron’s film Alasdair Gray, A Life In Progress:
Audio transcript:
“I’ve always felt that stories and pictures were a way of keeping people I knew alive and as they were. The portraits for instance, you know that, show people young and middle aged, long after they’re dead! And keep them remembered long after they’re forgotten, I hope. And the same if you make people characters in stories.
Painting by Alasdair Gray with text at the bottom that says, We Were Like This In 1966
Anybody who has seen a lot of my work… book illustrative designs, mural paintings, will find certain faces and figures keep coming up in them. Certain symbolic or emblematic figures, like the winged embryo inside the skull, which for me is a way of reconciling life and death. Because I’m showing that death contains new life and, well life punches through death to take on a new form.
The emblem of a winged embryo inside a skull that Alasdair reused over many years
Many such figures I use and recycle. And many mottos. ‘Work as if you lived in the early days of better nation!’ I got that from Dennis Lee, a Canadian poet. And it seemed to me such a good idea. Such a good way of approaching your own work. Seeing yourself as, as something early! And something that could be made better.”
1959-62 mural painting by Alasdair Gray, The Seventh Day after Creation
From the scrapbook
Like many other proud relatives, Alasdair’s sister Mora has kept track of her brother’s activities in an ever-expanding series of scrapbooks which are still going strong today. The first entry was in 1951 and Alasdair donated miscellaneous items of interest whenever he remembered. This article was written by a friend of Kat’s after Poor Things was first published in 1992 and it gives an insight into Alasdair’s conversational style as well as his work.
Click the image to enlarge it or use this link for a full transcript.
Julia Thrift speaks to Alasdair Gray for The Independent
“While it would be perfectly accurate to describe Alasdair Gray as a writer and artist, to do so would be to miss the point. Alasdair Gray is a subversive, a dryly humorous underminer of conventions, a ridiculer of humbug in the best Scottish tradition. He defies easy categorisation; he is a highly regarded author who is also an acclaimed and collected artist, a writer in his fifties who has a cult following among readers half his age.
After the publication of his first novel, Lanark, he was profiled by I-D magazine and described by Anthony Burgess as the first important Scottish writer since Sir Walter Scott - more diverse sources of kudos are hard to imagine. Gray’s books are intriguing objects in themselves. Illustrated by Gray’s distinctive pen and ink drawings, the text laid out according to his idiosyncratic views on typography, they are full of footnotes, both erudite and silly - Lewis Carroll or Beatrix Potter is just as likely to be cited as Milton or Kafka - and these, like the blurbs on the dust jackets, are not mere appendages, they are as much a part of Gray's creation as the text and the illustrations.” Julia Thrift
There are more reviews from the scrapbook in our individual book pages: Lanark, Poor Things, 1982 Janine, Something Leather.
Who is Alasdair Gray to you?
“His laugh. Half way between a hoot and a screech - it was a turner of heads. His laugh could silence a bar or a room, sometimes it could even bring the street to a halt.”
Alasdair Gray’s creative imagination connected him to people worldwide and his work belongs to all of us. So to begin to understand who Alasdair Gray is, we need to know what he means to you too!
What 3 words would you use to describe Alasdair and his work?
Explore more…
A Gray’s place
After Alasdair Gray died his flat was cleared and sold. But you can still visit it.
Alasdair Gray is Digit Al
Is Alasdair Gray really an inherently analogue creator? We’ve got other ideas.
External links:
BBC Arts - Under the Helmet In October 1964 the BBC broadcast a documentary about Alasdair Gray’s work called Under the Helmet
Alasdair Gray at Eighty (2014 documentary)
Alasdair Gray | National Galleries of Scotland
Hear Alasdair reading excerpts from his own books and other favourites on Alasdair Gray rereads