ALASDAIR GRAY (SCOTTISH 1934-2019) §
TWO VIEWS OF MARY BLISS - 1960
Auction: 13 August 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
Inscribed: “On the 23rd August 1960, 0:30 minutes A.M., I, Alasdair Gray, surrendered my attempt to entirely embed Mary Hamilton in her environment being overcome by exhaustion and despair...”, ballpoint pen on brown paper
Dimensions
76cm x 44cm (30in x 17.25in)
Footnote
Literature: ‘A Life in Pictures', Alasdair Gray, Canongate, 2010, p.85
Fifty years after the production of this drawing, Gray wrote extensively about how he came to create it:
[…] Mary Hamilton, now a qualified medical practitioner, who liked my writing perhaps more than my painting, came from a New Zealand family with a highly independent literate culture, so enjoyed our talks together though disagreeing about many things, especially politics. I proposed marriage at the end of one such talk, during which I had sketched her. She sensibly refused […] What fascinates me about this sketch in cheap ballpoint pen is the detailed still life on the tabletop, with cast shadows and reflections in the glossy coffee pot […] It is a clear case of what Freud would call sublimation. When working on it I had missed the last train home that day. […]