MORNINGSIDE GALLERY
JOE HARGAN PAI PPAI RGI
ANOTHER LETTER
JOE HARGAN PAI PPAI RGI
ANOTHER LETTER
27TH APRIL - 11TH MAY
INTRODUCTION
Scottish artist Joe Hargan was born in 1952 in Glasgow. He studied Drawing and Painting at Glasgow School of Art from 1970 – 74 under Danny Ferguson RSW. RGI., James Robertson RSW. RGI. RSA. PAI. and Dr David Donaldson RSA. RGI. D.LITT (Queen’s Limner). A well recognised and respected figure on the Scottish art scene, Joe has been the recipient of numerous awards, from the Glasgow School of Art Painting Prize back in 1972, the Royal Scottish Academy Maude Gemmell Hutchison Award in 2002 and more recently the Paisley City of Culture Bid Award in 2021. And plenty of others in between. Joe is from a generation of artists who value their own work as part of a bigger picture; a generation that recognises the important role that regional and national arts bodies can play in the encouragement of young talent and the development of professional artistic careers. With a sense of responsibility and reciprocity, Joe has worked tirelessly over the years to protect and promote the visual arts for the artists and public of today, as much as those of tomorrow. These values, coupled with his great aptitude for paperwork and deciphering legalese, have resulted in his frequent election to leadership roles within art institutions. Among many other leadership positions over the years, Joe has been President and Chairman of the Paisley Art Institute from 1989 - 2000 and President of the Glasgow Art Club from 2017- 2020, again returning to the Presidency of the Paisley Art Institute in 2022 (ongoing). The last few years have been a challenging time for Joe and many others, and a legal battle with Renfrewshire Council surrounding the future of the Paisley Art Institute’s building, exhibition spaces and its large £4 million collection of Scottish paintings, has taken up a lot of his time and energy. Joe has been at the centre of all of this, working round the clock to ensure that the permanent collection and the contemporary annual exhibitions have a future, and most importantly, that the young artists of tomorrow have some of the same opportunities that he and his peers have had in the past.
This is a rather long and serious introduction to an artist who many people associate first and foremost with the tongue-in-cheek ‘Sniffy’ paintings - masterfully colourful paintings featuring the ‘sniffy’ rotund butler within gallery and stately home settings, always surrounded by old masters and an air of the ridiculous. Not only finely executed, these paintings offer humorous and sometimes surreal vignettes of the good life - wine flows and there is always cake, as we are treated to a painting within a painting, a Canaletto or a John Singer Sargent from the end of Joe’s brush. There is always a little more than meets the eye however, and these ‘Sniffy’ paintings are a commentary of sorts, with Joe’s playful juxtapositions of the traditional and the modern raising questions about the value of contemporary art, and his humorous ‘vignettes’ providing us with a visual picture of some of the debates that take place in the strange and wonderful place that is the art world today. Even with all of its challenges and contradictions - and perhaps because of them - it is Joe’s world, the place he has inhabited creatively for decades and the source of his inspiration. The ‘Sniffy’ paintings can be enjoyed on their own, but it is in the context of a solo show like this that we can really appreciate them as part of the larger narrative of Joe’s life and work. The solo exhibition is also an opportunity to show the breadth of Joe’s creative output, and in particular, some of his larger figurative paintings, which reveal his life-long study of Western art and culture and his ability to see and make connections between its past, present and future. In his early 70s now, Joe’s unshakeable energy and commitment to the arts is admirable and the future will undoubtedly remember his contributions as an individual artist and for the work he has done to promote visual art in the West of Scotland and Scotland more generally. For now though, we are able to delight in his paintings, and to treat ourselves to a full exhibition of work by one of Scotland’s most accomplished painters. From the largest gestural abstracts to the smallest of his character studies, Joe’s brushwork is irresistible and feels like painting at its most fluent.
Eileadh Swan Gallery Director
Another Letter Oil on Canvas | 108 x 108 cm | £9500
A Look Behind Oil on Board | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
Jasmine Oil on Board | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
The Debutante Oil on Canvas | 108 x 108 cm | £9500
Along Came a Spider Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
A Slip of a Girl Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
The Chaperone Oil on Canvas | 93 x 93 cm | £6500
Monsieur le Blanc Oil on Board | 55 x 45 cm | £2500
Still Life with Tazzy Oil on Board | 45 x 55 cm | £2500
Arrangement in Pink Oil on Canvas | 108 x 108 cm | £9500
The Wee Princess Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
The Artful Doggy Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
The Bathroom Singer Oil on Board | 93 x 93 cm | £6500
Dora Oil on Canvas | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
Summertime Oil on Canvas | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
Susan and the Elder Oil on Board | 154 x 154 cm | £20,000
Life with Rosie Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
Blue Sky Thinking Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
The Letter Oil on Canvas | 108 x 108 cm | £9500
Still Life in Red Oil on Board | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
The Beach Hut Oil on Board | 47 x 47 cm | £1600
En Suite Oil on Canvas | 93 x 93 cm | £6500
In the Pink Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
A Piece of Cake Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
The Green Room Birthday Oil on Canvas | 93 x 93 cm | £6500
Life’s a Yo-yo Oil on Canvas | 73 x 73 cm | £4500
Girl and Bird Oil on Board | 37 x 40 cm | £800
Fifi and Lulu Oil on Canvas | 93 x 93 cm | £6500
Anouska Oil on Board | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
Sleeping Dot Oil on Board | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
The Old Rocker Oil on Canvas | 108 x 108 cm | £9500
Lucca Oil on Board | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
The Sunseeker Oil on Board | 48 x 65 cm | £2500
The Family Oil on Board | 154 x 154 cm | £20,000
Helen Oil on Canvas | 144 x 175 cm | £20,000
Jenny Oil on Canvas | 42 x 42 cm | £1300
Songbird Oil on Board | 37 x 37 cm | £800
West Coast Mixed Media | 124 x 124 cm | £9200
Regeneration Mixed Media | 124 x 124 cm | £9200
N O T E S :
All paintings are for sale and may be purchased or reserved upon receipt of this catalogue. We kindly request that decisions on reserves are made by 10am on Friday 26th of April. Please contact us if you would like further images of a painting or to arrange an in-gallery or virtual viewing appointment prior to the exhibition opening.
Painting sizes are width x height and include the frame.
MORNINGSIDE GALLERY 94 Morningside Road, Edinburgh, EH10 4BY 0131 447 3041 | art@morningsidegallery.co.uk | www.morningsidegallery.co.uk
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