or maybe think you are. Keep striving, keep practising
and never, ever, be disheartened.
These principles were nurtured in him at the Glasgow
School of Art where my father enrolled at the precocious
age of 16. Dad’s whole career as an artist would be
grounded in the rigorous approach to figurative painting
that was preached at the school. His exquisite control of
tone and clarity of line were the legacy of this training.
Sandy emerged from his studies in 1955, already a
confident and flamboyant practitioner and he quickly went
on to distinguish himself as a portrait painter. During his
career he painted the Queen, Lord Chancellors, business
tycoons and celebrities, including Billy Connolly.
And yet, the most powerful portraits he ever created
were of farmers and fishermen. In 1962 my father marriedM
y father’s name was Alexander
Goudie and he was one of
Scotland’s most distinguished
painters. His portraits were renowned for
their swagger, and his still lifes seduced
with sparkle and elegance.
He designed opera sets (Richard
Strauss’s Salome), illustrated great poems
(Robert Burns’s Tam o’ Shanter), he was a
sculptor, a ceramicist and he decorated the
interiors of great ships. Whenever I’m
struggling to finish a canvas, he’s still the
person to which I turn. Yet it was his destiny,
as a young man, to become a plumber.
My father was born in 1933, in the town
of Paisley, just outside Glasgow. There were
no paintbrushes in the tenement flat in
which he grew up, no paintings on the walls.
His mother, Elizabeth, was convinced that
his future lay in an apprenticeship with the
family plumbing firm: Goudie Brothers.
She’d never have believed that her son
would one day walk across the courtyard
at Buckingham Palace to paint a portrait
of Her Majesty, the Queen.
At the tail end of the Second World War,
however, Sandy (as he was known to
friends and family) was still a schoolboy;
academically disinterested, distracted and
occasionally unruly. But boy, could he draw!
Horses were his speciality, often
remembered from the Western movies
that he loved so much. My father kept some
of these early artworks and when, in turn,
I began to draw my own childish pictures
influenced by Westerns, he showed them
to me. They were the first inkling of how
brilliant my dad was – effortless drawings, sophisticated
handling of watercolour, scenes and faces that were
instantly recognisable.
As a child growing up in an artistic household, I took the
paintings that my dad created for granted. But comparing
what I was capable of with his early drawings was a
sobering experience. It was the first and perhaps most
important artistic lesson he ever taught me: Being an artist
is a learning game. You’re never as good as you want to beABOVE Herod’s
Banquet, oil and
chalk on board,
1 9 9 0 , 1 4 4 x 274 c m
OPPOSITE PAGE
Budoc and
Gwen, 1976,
oil on canvas,
112x117cmAN ARTIST IS A LEARNING GAME...
“MY FATHER TAUGHT ME THAT BEING
YOU’RE NEVER AS GOOD AS YOU
WANT TO BE... OR THINK YOU ARE” >
Artists & Illustrators 2928 Lachlan Goudie.indd 29 17/02/2016 15:09