Skip navigation
Tate Logo
Shop
Become a Member

Main menu

  • Art and artists
    • Our collection
      Artists
      Artworks
      Art by theme
      Explore
      Videos
      Podcasts
      Short articles
      In depth
      Art Terms
      Tate Research
      Student resources
      Make art
      Create like an artist
      Kids art activities
      Tate Draw game
  • What's on
  • Plan your visit

Main menu additional

  • Shop
  • Become a Member
Expand
  • Art and Artists
  • Artists
  • Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray

1934 – 2019

Lanark - Title Page 2014
© reserved
License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Rooms

6 artworks by Alasdair Gray
View by Appointment

Biography

Alasdair James Gray (28 December 1934 – 29 December 2019) was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.

He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As well as his book illustrations, he painted portraits and murals, including one at the Òran Mór venue and one at Hillhead subway station. His artwork has been widely exhibited and is in several important collections. Before Lanark, he had plays performed on radio and TV.

His writing style is postmodern and has been compared with those of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. It often contains extensive footnotes explaining the works that influenced it. His books inspired many younger Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A. L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Chris Kelso and Iain Banks. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow from 1977 to 1979, and professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities from 2001 to 2003.

Gray was a Scottish nationalist and a republican, and wrote supporting socialism and Scottish independence. He popularised the epigram "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" (taken from a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Lee) which was engraved in the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh when it opened in 2004. He lived almost all his life in Glasgow, married twice, and had one son. On his death The Guardian referred to him as "the father figure of the renaissance in Scottish literature and art".

This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License. Spotted a problem? Let us know.

Read full Wikipedia entry

Artworks

Left Right
  • Alasdair Gray Lanark - Book One

    2014
    View by appointment
  • Alasdair Gray Lanark - Book Two

    2014
    View by appointment
  • Alasdair Gray Lanark - Book Three

    2014
    View by appointment
  • Alasdair Gray Lanark - Book Four

    2014
    View by appointment
  • Alasdair Gray Lanark (Book Jacket)

    2014
    View by appointment
  • Alasdair Gray Lanark - Title Page

    2014
    View by appointment
  • Alasdair Gray Lanark (Book 1 Frontispiece)

    1982
  • Alasdair Gray Lanark (Book 2 Frontispiece)

    1982
See all 11

In the shop

Browse the shop
Close

Join in

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
Sign up to emails

Sign up to emails

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Tate’s privacy policy

About

  • About us
  • Our collection
  • Terms and copyright
  • Governance
  • Picture library
  • ARTIST ROOMS
  • Tate Kids

Support

  • Tate Collective
  • Members
  • Patrons
  • Donate
  • Corporate
  • My account
  • Press
  • Jobs
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Contact