Alexander Stoddart Study of Scottish National Portrait Gallery Facade 2012 © Alexander and Catriona Stoddart

Biography

Born 1959
Nationality Scottish
Birth place Edinburgh

Born in Edinburgh, Stoddart studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1976-80. There he challenged modernist, multi-media approaches and began instead to produce austere, neo-classical busts and statues. Briefly associated with Ian Hamilton Finlay in the mid 1980s, it was later in the decade that Stoddart began making more public works, including: deities for the Italian Centre, Glasgow; David Hume for Edinburgh’s Royal Mile; two John Witherspoon statues for the universities of Paisley and Princeton; and a scheme of architectural sculpture for the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace. Often controversial and certainly ambitious, Stoddart has spoken of his desire to create Scotland’s own Mount Rushmore - a 2275ft sculpture of the Gaelic bard Ossian carved into a mountain-side.