Norman Gilbert

*FINAL WEEKS*

An exhibition of work by the Glasgow artist, in his south side neighbourhood

Tuesdays to Fridays 12 to 5pm
Saturday and Sunday 12 to 6pm
CLOSED Mondays

Norman Gilbert (1926-2019) lived and worked on Glasgow’s southside for over sixty years, painting intimate, domestic scenes of his wife Pat, their four children and an extended family of friends and neighbours who frequented their home on Shields Road - not far from Tramway - and enriched and shaped their lives.

Gilbert’s vibrant and formally diverse paintings are characterised by bold, inventive colour palettes and flat areas of vivid pattern which sit next to one another in exuberant combinations. Intricately detailed and complex in their composition, his paintings deftly shape a fluid synthesis between figure and space; in Gilbert’s own words: “each colour and shape enhances every other colour and shape, so it’s entirely satisfactory, so it’s at peace.” 

Gilbert’s studio was based in the family home and his paintings are steeped in the echoes of domestic life. Perhaps most poignantly Gilbert’s work has also come to mark the passage of time, as children grow and his subjects age. Notably he painted many portraits of sons and his wife Pat, continuing into old age in paintings which evoke the complex intimacies and inner emotional worlds that make up a life. Dedicated to his practice over his 70 year career, Gilbert continued to paint into his nineties through the final years of his life. .

Along with Norman Gilbert's paintings, we are also exhibiting black and white studies, as well as textiles, objects and ephemera from the artist’s studio. 

Supported by Creative Scotland 
With thanks to the Norman Gilbert Trust and the Tatha Gallery, Newport on Tay.

Image: 'Reclining Boy and Girl'
Oil on Board,122x76cm,©NormanGilbert,1971