IT is the “splendid” home of books and learning where one of Scotland’s greatest living writers and artists first ignited his capacious imagination.
Now Riddrie Library, where Alasdair Gray voraciously read and worked as a boy, is to be a gallery for his art.
The solid, compact 1930s structure in the heart of the Riddrie housing scheme in the east of Glasgow, was where the young Gray spent many hours reading, and writing and drawing, stories of “fantastic lands”.
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Now the author, playwright and artist has one of his best known works of art, Cowcaddens Streetscape in the 1950s, hanging on its walls, as a long-planned project comes to fruition.
Gray, 82, who is currently in a wheelchair as he recovers from a serious fall he suffered last year, is to exhibit more of his art work in the library and turn its high walls into a gallery.
He wishes to add some portraits of “Glasgow people”, including one of scriptwriter Susan Boyd, and a large painting, A Charm Against Serpents.
The Cowcaddens painting was offered as the first painting for the gallery by its owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, and its display arranged by Alyson Niven, library manager of Glasgow Life.
Gray - who said his “paraphrase in prosaic rhyme” of Dante’s Inferno, in three parts, will be published late this year by Canongate Books - said: “It was the owner’s idea, she wanted it hung in a public place and she wanted it here, because she knew it was my library from primary, through secondary and into my early Glasgow School of Art days.
“It was favourite seat of learning, this library, so I was very pleased about the idea.
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“I first came here when I was 11 or 12, I was a voracious reader: of course I started off in the children’s section but if you were sufficiently studious you could borrow from the non-fiction in the adult section - I wasn’t much interested in romance or crime, but I was interested in geography and biography and much else, so I got a great deal out of it.”
Mr Gray is able to write and draw, but at the moment cannot work on large canvasses.
“I keep hoping I will be strong enough to stand up, but it hasn’t happened yet,” he said.
“I have recovered mentally, at least, but I haven’t yet got back the use of my legs, probably never will, but I keep hoping - I cannot paint on a big scale until I do. But with the help of friends, I want to finish my work in the auditorium of Oran Mor [venue].”
The Cowcaddens painting will be hung at the library for a year.
Gray said: “Cowcaddens landscape, completed in 1965, was based on sketches of Glasgow Cowcaddens and the Port Of Dundas section of the Monkland Canal made when I was a Glasgow School of Art student in the 50’s.”
He added: “The painting combines all the things that excited me about Glasgow in the 1950s, chiefly at night, seen in the lamp light - I found the effects of light and shade hugely excited me.
“I saw it as a place where all kinds of exciting adventures could take place.
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“The big water cooler in Port Dundas, that has since been taken down, fascinated me, because like Mount Fuji, it presented the same outline from wherever you looked at it from.”
Gray, who was born in 1934, said: “Glasgow Public Libraries were a greater source of learning to me than my secondary school...in the humour section I found the writings of [SJ]Perelman and [James] Thurber, there was also a series of one act play books. In adult non-fiction I enjoyed the autobiographies of Jocelyn Brook, essays of Chesterton and Heine’s travel writings.”
Councillor Archie Graham, chair of Glasgow Life, added: “Alasdair Gray is a towering figure in the Scottish art and literary scene and it is wonderful to see this stunning piece of art displayed in a venue that holds such special memories for Alasdair.”
Cowcaddens will be on display to the public in Riddrie Library until January 2018.
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