British Contemporary Artist: Peter Howson

Painting: Study for Saint Andrew

Peter Howson has established a formidable reputation as one of the leading contemporary figurative painters of his generation. Influences on his paintings have included: Picasso and Cubism, Salvador Dali and Surrealism, and the Old Masters Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo but the style that has emerged is individual and all his own.

This dramatic study of Saint Andrew is typical of Howson''s style. The oil painting captures the strength of character and anguished, rugged face of the Galilean fisherman. Andrew the Apostle is portrayed with a heightened sense of realism, reminiscent of Howson''s paintings of Glasgow misfits and down and outs. We are reminded of the realism and drama of a Rembrandt painting where people are not idealised but painted ''warts and all''. Howson''s use of a dark background and the fact that the work almost appears to be a fragment of something larger, serves to highlight the drama in the piece.

The theme for the painting was suggested by Edinburgh''s City Art Centre who originaly approached Peter Howson for a single painting of St Andrew, as a contemporary end piece for an exhibition of medieval and renaissance works on the patron saint of Scotland. Howson made his own trip to the Holy Land and made 40 studies of which this is one.

Click here to view more contemporary paintings by Peter HOWSON.