The Scottish Alphabet is a playful design that draws on the Scottish identity. The artist includes illustrations of Scottish celebrities as well as Scottish icons such as Nessie along side the letters. Urquhart has created a series of alphabet artworks centred on particular celebrities, as well as alphabets from other countries. The artist prefers to incorporate the grimly humorous into his works.

Donald Urquhart, born 1959

Donald Urquhart was born in Bankfoot, Perthshire, in 1963. He is a painter, draughtsman, performer, and photographer. Between 1978 and 1982, he attended Edinburgh College of Art to study. Prior to graduating, he received a scholarship to Hospitalfield's Patrick Allan-Fraser School of Art and received a commendation at the Stowells Trophy Exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1980. He was the first Scot to receive the Richard Ford Award from RA, which allowed him to work in Spain in 1982. He also received travel scholarships to Paris in 1981 and Belgium in 1982. Urquhart began working as a full-time painter in Glasgow in 1983 and travelled widely throughout Europe, North America, and India. In 1984, he relocated to London, where he made acquaintances with Leigh Bowery and began working with him. He received an invitation to take part in the International Weeks of Painting in Celje, Slovenia, the following year. He then travelled to Zagreb, Croatia, to work on a collection of images depicting a city in conflict. This was a preoccupation of his, as was the landscape of his youth, and it was expressed in his art through the use of a limited palette.