Hang 3 //: Scottish Painting 1950-1980

The decades following WW2 saw artists take new forms of artistic expression. The order and rationalism that had preceded was rejected. Painting became more gestural and instinctive; this was achieved through the application of paint not just from brushes but palette knives and any other means that gave the artist the desired surface effect they sought. The materiality of paint and other substances were used to expressive ends. Paint could be piled on, scraped back and worked into. Mixed media, collage and found objects were all part of the arsenal.   

In this, Hang 3 // 1950-1980, were examples of work by Anne Redpath, William Gillies and John Houston who embraced an expressive and gestural way of painting in their boldly coloured work. In stark contrast to this highly figurative and representational way of painting was abstract artist Talbert Mclean. A lone figure in Scottish art at the time, he pursued it nonetheless. Will Maclean’s work of the 1970s explores the use of found objects in boxed constructions that evoke and give history and intimacy to his forebears through the representation of their way of life.