Object numberOM-17994
DescriptionOil portrait of George Mackay Brown by Edinburgh-based artist, Alexander Moffat, 1980.
From 2018 display text: The portrait of the poet and writer has been on show at Stromness Academy for more than 20 years as part of Orkney Islands Council's Art in Public Places scheme. Last year, it was lent to the Pier Arts Centre for Portrait of Stromness - a Burgh of Barony 200 Anniversary Exhibition, before being shown as part of the exhibition, Landmarks: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland, at the Lillie Art Gallery in Milngavie, and the Montrose Museum and Art Gallery.
The work is one of a group of seven portraits of the major poets of the Scottish literary renaissance, including Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, Sorley MacLean, and Edwin Morgan, commissioned from Sandy Moffat by the Scottish Arts Council. "All portraits begin with the live encounter between sitter and artist," commented Sandy. "Few people actually knew what these poets looked like when I painted them - and there's a sense that we understand them as human beings now in a way that wasn't always the case, not only words on the page, but living people in company and with their own stories."
Sandy travelled to Stromness in 1980 and spent a week making a series of sketches of George Mackay Brown, some in the poet's living room surrounded by books, others in the bar of the former Braes Hotel. "I wanted the painting to have a uniquely Orkney setting and that's why the hotel sketches, with Stromness and Scapa Flow as their backdrop, are reflected in the final portrait," Sandy said. "George was an easy subject to work with. We'd met in Edinburgh the early 1960s and we had a good catch up, with George keen to hear news of the other poets he knew from that time."
The portrait was originally shown in the exhibition, Seven Poets, at the Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, in 1981. The exhibition also travelled to the Pier Arts Centre. All seven portraits were reunited for the Landmarks exhibition in 2018, displayed alongside new paintings by Ruth Nicol depicting the landscapes in which the poets worked.
When Sandy heard that the portrait of George needed some restorative work, almost 40 years after it was painted, he was keen to undertake this himself. He said, "An initial inspection revealed the surface had been badly damaged and that a major task lay ahead in order to restore the portrait before it could be shown again. On reflection it seemed this would be best carried out by myself, rather than a specialist restorer. After all, I had all of the information a restorer would need in terms of the type of canvas, primer, paint, and mixing mediums used in 1980. So, after careful consideration of all of the processes I might deploy, I set about the restoration and re-painting of the portrait."
Sandy describes the process as "a labour of love. It can seem rather daunting at first, but the process of returning the painting to the way it first looked has been very satisfying and I'm delighted with the final results. There's been tremendous enthusiasm when I've told people about restoring the portrait - especially among painters and poets - and that reflects the affection and respect there is for George and his work."
Object namePortrait of George Mackay Brown
Materialoil on canvas; oak