Christopher Murray Grieve (nom de plume, 'Hugh MacDiarmid'), 1892 - 1978. Poet and writer (Hymn to Lenin)
About this artwork
This work is part of a series of portraits of Scottish poets commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council. At this time in Scotland there existed an outstanding generation of poets. Christopher Murray Grieve was one of the most important literary figures of twentieth-century Scotland, now recognised as the principal force of the Scottish Literary Renaissance. This vibrant painting shows the poet against a landscape that Moffat saw as symbolising Scotland. The figures include Lenin, Mayakovsky and the Scottish Socialist Revolutionary, John MacLean. Grieve had strong political beliefs and he co-founded the National Party of Scotland, today’s SNP.
Updated before 2020
-
artist:Alexander Moffat (born 1943) Scottish
-
title:Christopher Murray Grieve (nom de plume, 'Hugh MacDiarmid'), 1892 - 1978. Poet and writer (Hymn to Lenin)
-
date created:1979
-
materials:Oil on canvas
-
measurements:109.50 x 188.50 cm; Framed: 124.13 x 203.20 x 5.08 cm
-
object type:
-
credit line:Presented by the Scottish Arts Council 1997
-
accession number:PG 3075
-
gallery:
-
depicted:
-
subject:
-
artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Alexander Moffat
Alexander Moffat
Born in Dunfermline, Moffat studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1960 to 64. Alongside his friend John Bellany, Moffat emerged as one of the Scottish Realists, so-called because of their social awareness and rejection of the decorative principles that defined much Scottish art during the first...