A new exhibition will feature the work of a 95-year-old man who has spent his retirement painting his childhood memories of Glasgow from the 1930s.
Art by Tommy, which opens later this month at Sogo Arts Gallery, Saltmarket, will showcase a selection of nostalgic oil paintings by 95-year-old artist Thomas 'Tommy' McGoran.
The heartfelt paintings recall Tommy's memories of being brought up in a bygone Glasgow where children embarked on endless adventures with their pals in dilapidated tenement back courts and raced each other in homemade 'guidy barrows'.
One of nine children, Tommy was born in Ayr in 1927, but moved to Glasgow's east end with his family in 1931, where they lived in cramped conditions in a two-room tenement flat.
He left school at age 14 to become a cinema projectionist before serving in the Royal Air Force for three years. On his return to civilian life, the advent of television was killing off the picture houses, so Tommy joined British Railways as a guard, staying in the role for 32 years.
After retiring as a chief inspector in 1988, Tommy took up oil painting as a hobby, using his memories of childhood as his primary source of inspiration.
Despite having no formal training, the self-taught artist's work, which evokes both the carefree nature and gritty reality of interwar era Glasgow, has received many plaudits with his work previously exhibited at the Forge Shopping Centre and the Glasgow School of Art's Reid Building.
From July 15, 2023, Tommy's work will be exhibited once more, this time at the Saltmarket's Sogo Art Gallery, who have confirmed they will be showing 26 of his oil paintings.
The exhibition is being sponsored by Norry Wilson of the popular Lost Glasgow website. High quality prints of Tommy's work will be made available at the gallery.
In one of Tommy's paintings, entitled "Survival of the Fittest", we are transported to a tenement back court in the early 1930s, where local weans would be out playing from dawn till dusk, transforming middens into forts, and making the best out of what they had. Another poignant image, "The Washerwoman", captures a bereaved 'steamie' worker busy squeezing clothes dry with a mangle.
Speaking to Glasgow Live, Tommy said: "It will be great to see my work framed in a proper gallery setting. I just want people to come along and see my work. I hope people will really have a fun day out."
Sogo Arts Gallery curator Craig Wallace added: "It's been an absolute pleasure working with Tom on his exhibition. His enthusiasm is quite infectious, and as a Community Interest Company situated on the Saltmarket it is more than appropriate that we show his paintings.
"His memories growing up in the east end of Glasgow in the 1930s reflects the hardship and camaraderie of old Glasgow."
