Pensees Triste, with its symbols of life alongside symbols of death, meditates on the precariousness of human life and the sorrow of war, much as Picasso did in the early 1950s in his grey monochrome still lifes depicting a goat's skull with a bottle and a candle. 

Alexander Goudie RP, 1933-2004

Goudie was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, and trained at Glasgow School of Art, where his teacher David Donaldson was an early influence not only on his painting but also on his decision to become a portrait painter. Glasgow has a tradition of producing successful portrait painters - Sir James Guthrie, E.A. Walton, Harrington Mann and Sir John Lavery. Goudie's stylish portraits have an affinity with those of Lavery, just as some of his interiors recall those of the Scottish Colourist Cadell.