Viewing Room
Welcome to the Castle Gallery Viewing Rooms where you will find highlights from selected artists focussing on key works, inspirational ideas and telling the stories behind the works. Best viewed on a desktop browser.
Joseph Davie
‘Vier + Four’
This is a rare book featuring the work of Scottish and German printmakers and literary figures, including Joe Davie and Alasdair Gray. It was a collaboration between the Glasgow Print Studio and Druckwerkstatt Berlin at the time the Berlin Wall came down and was published in 1990 as a limited edition of 150. We have edition No.6 and No.69 available to purchase.
This is a rare book featuring the work of Scottish and German printmakers and literary figures, including Joe Davie and Alasdair Gray. It was a collaboration between the Glasgow Print Studio and Druckwerkstatt Berlin at the time the Berlin Wall came down and was published in 1990 as a limited edition of 150. We have edition No.6 and No.69 available to purchase.
Joe Davie was chosen, with Murray Robertson, to represent the Glasgow printmakers and he recollects:
“The project started back in 1989, when the two Glasgow artists and two Glasgow writers visited Berlin, and the two Berlin writers and artists visited Glasgow. Remarkably, Murray and I arrived in Berlin the day after the first breach in the wall, in November1989! We immediately headed there with the artists, to roam the scene. This momentous backdrop to the previously planned collaboration between the Glasgow Print Studio and the Druckwerkstatt Berlin was clearly unforeseen. Murray and I stayed with the Berlin artist Christian Rothmann for a week, and stayed in the company of the Berlin artists and writers as their city became the centre of world media attention. Later, in June 1990, when the wall officially began to be dismantled, we returned and stayed for two months to complete our images and prints in Berlin. We wandered through checkpoint Charlie, unchecked. We stood in the watchtowers. East Berlin uniforms and memorabilia were up for sale, as was the wall. The Berlin artists produced their work in Glasgow the same year. Glasgow was the City of Culture!
The resultant book had an opening and exhibition in Glasgow and in Berlin. Alasdair Grey's irreverent speech, mistranslating Wolfgang's straight man speech, was hilarious and very memorable. The book consists of original, "events inspired", poems by Alasdair Gray, Liz Lochhead, Wolfgang Heyder and Ernest Wichner. The images are by Christian Rothmann, Toni Wirthmuller, Murray Robertson and myself. It is a limited edition book, bound in Berlin, I believe, and printed in Glasgow and Berlin. The edition is 150 in number, each book signed by all artists and writers.”
The resultant book had an opening and exhibition in Glasgow and in Berlin. Alasdair Grey's irreverent speech, mistranslating Wolfgang's straight man speech, was hilarious and very memorable. The book consists of original, "events inspired", poems by Alasdair Gray, Liz Lochhead, Wolfgang Heyder and Ernest Wichner. The images are by Christian Rothmann, Toni Wirthmuller, Murray Robertson and myself. It is a limited edition book, bound in Berlin, I believe, and printed in Glasgow and Berlin. The edition is 150 in number, each book signed by all artists and writers.”
Alasdair Gray (1934-2019) wrote novels, short stories, plays and poetry. He studied at Glasgow School of Art and illustrated his own books, as well as painting portraits and murals. He is known today, especially, as the author of ‘Poor Things’. He wrote this novel in 1992 and it was adapted and released as a film by Searchlight Pictures in 2023. The film was nominated for eleven Academy awards winning the Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
|
Alasdair Gray states in the book Vier + Four that “he wished to write many verses about Berlin (that most complex of European cities) and the friendly treatment he received there. Being a slow digester of new experiences he has so far failed to press out more than this account of what moved him to go there.” The book has 7 verses by Alasdair Gray and is personally signed by him.
|
Fraoch
Inspired by a traditional Gaelic poem from the sixteenth century found in the ‘Book of the Dean of Lismore’ in which Fraoch is sent to retrieve a branch from a magical rowan tree. Fraoch swims to an isolated island guarded by a sea monster but when he uproots the rowan tree the monster awakes and tears off Fraoch’s arm, he is mortally wounded and eventually dies in the arms of his lover, Findabair. The border is created from imprints of rowan leaves and an old snakeskin handbag to suggest the scales of the monster.
|
Strathnaver
Inspired by a poem ‘Srath Nabhair’ by Ruairidh MacThomais (Derick Thompson) 1921-2012 from ‘Creachadh na Clarsaich/ Plundering the Harp’ (Macdonald, 1982). Strathnaver in Sutherland is infamous for the brutal clearing of the crofting people from their land by Patrick Sellar, factor for the Duke of Sutherland in the early nineteenth century. In the etching smoke rises from the timbers of their burning homes leaving only the stars for shelter as the sinister creel of sheep horns takes centre stage.
|
The Author of this is Bard MacIntyre
This etching is inspired by a poem ‘The Ship of Woman’ by Bard Macintyre from the sixteenth century ‘Book of the Dean of Lismore’. This is a ship of folklore and tradition, and it carries a cargo of three strange and evil women who seem to be portents of fate, whilst ominously large fish swim below. This etching refers back to ‘Bard McIntyre’s box’ of 1984 which is owned by the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art.
|
The King's Fish
This etching is inspired by a traditional Gaelic poem ‘Iasg an Righ’ which tells of a fishing trip in which both the Viking and Irish king hook the same dogfish at the same time and so quarrel over ownership of the fish – possibly a metaphor for the battles for ownership of the Western Isles, the Isle of Man and Ireland. Will Maclean has cleaved the etching plate in two to symbolise the acrimony. Seaweed has been imprinted into the border to extend the marine theme.
|
The Loss of Gaelic
‘Sioldadh no Gaidhlige’, a poem by Meg Bateman, was the inspiration for this etching. The poem deals with the decline of the language and culture of the Gael with the imagery of a fraying anchor rope. Will Maclean’s dark mournful etching, with half-present figures and obscured symbols conveys this dreadful loss. However, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon as a shaft of light illuminates the Highland landscape. ‘Sioldadh no Gaidhlige’, translated into ‘The Loss of Gaelic’ by Meg Bateman.
You gave me an intellectual grasp
of something unique dying out, of a despoiling humanity for which there can be no reparation… An old woman dies at home, your anchorage rope is fraying; now I can see in your eyes the heart-break of the matter. |
Trio
The number three holds magical or mystical associations in many cultures and this is explored in the poem by Edinburgh based contemporary poet, Valerie Gillies. The poem tells of the continuum of the cycle of life and in the etching this is made visual with the never-ending phases of the moon and the spiral shell presented on an altar-like plinth. The image has a spiritual quality to it, reflecting on the mystery of the unknown forces of nature.
|
Will Maclean is one of the outstanding Scottish artists of this generation. He is Emeritus Professor at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, a fellow of both the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), he received an MBE for services to higher education and art in 2006 and is featured in The Tate’s ‘Artists’ Lives’ oral history archive. The Castle Gallery in Inverness is very lucky and privileged to be able to offer for sale several original, hand-made prints and a few paintings by Will Maclean.