My Favourite Scottish Work of Art: Chris Ingram

By Chris Ingram, 21.04.2022

Peter Howson (b. 1958), No Hope, 1998, ink and wash on paper, 34 x 23.5 cm. © The Artist. Image courtesy of The Ingram Collection © John-Paul Bland

The entrepreneur and philanthropist Chris Ingram has selected his favourite work of Scottish art as we prepare to open our joint exhibition with the Ingram Collection at the Lightbox, Woking.

"I’ve got five works by Peter Howson in The Ingram Collection and bought my first piece by him in 2005. These range from monumental canvases to small works on paper. I’ve never believed in the art world hierarchy of paintings being more important than drawings. I am particularly drawn to this work, No Hope, because of Howson’s ability to capture dark and deep emotions. It gets me every time. This is my favourite Scottish work of art today. Ask me again next week and you’ll get a different answer!"

Peter Howson

Born in London and brought up in Ayr, Howson possessed an early talent for drawing, enrolling at Glasgow School of Art in 1975. However, it was an unhappy experience - he could not do what he wanted to do - and he left at the end of his second year to join the Royal Highland Fusiliers, an impulsive decision that he regretted almost immediately. He left the army less than a year later, and for a further year was employed in a series of mundane jobs. It was a difficult period in Howson's life, but it furnished him with a vast fund of material that subsequently he used in his painting.

In 1979, after three months' studio work at Hospitalfield in Arbroath, Angus, Howson returned to Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 1981. He enjoyed his final year at school, largely due to the encouragement and teaching of Alexander Moffat, who introduced him to German Expressionism and the work of Max Beckman. Important milestones in Howson's early career were serving for six months as Artist-in-Residence at St Andrew's University in 1985 and being represented in two important exhibitions of the work of selected young artists - New Image Glasgow in 1985 and The Vigorous Imagination at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh in 1987. A retrospective exhibition of his work was held in 1993.

Howson's painting is characterized by strong draughtsmanship and even stronger images. In general he depicts a male-dominated world, populated by victim and victimizer (often the victim is also the victimizer), which draws on his experiences of both the army and Glasgow working-class life when he dropped out of Glasgow School of Art for two years. Aggression and depression are recurring themes. Howson's work is represented in many major public and private collections throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Tate in London. Other works by Howson in the Fleming Collection can be discovered here.

Chris Ingram & The Ingram Collection

Chris is known as the inventor of the modern media agency. In 2008 Chris was recognised by Campaign’s Hall of Fame as one of the individuals who have helped shape the UK’s advertising industry. Chris is actively involved in the charitable sector through his family trust, The Ingram Trust which supports approximately two dozen charities both national and international as well as locally in Surrey.

The Ingram Collection is one of the largest and most significant publicly accessible collections of Modern British Art in the UK, available to all through a programme of public loans and exhibitions. Founded in 2002 by serial entrepreneur and philanthropist Chris Ingram, the collection now spans over 100 years of British art and includes over 600 artworks. More than 400 of these are by some of the most important British artists of the twentieth century, amongst them Edward Burra, Lynn Chadwick, Elisabeth Frink, Barbara Hepworth and Eduardo Paolozzi. It also holds a growing number of works by young and emerging artists, and in 2016 established the Ingram Prize, an annual purchase prize created to celebrate and support the work and early careers of UK art school graduates.

Works from The Ingram Collection are on medium-term loan to The Lightbox gallery and museum in Woking, Chris Ingram’s home town. Howson's No Hope is on display as part of 'A Window into Scottish Art' at the Lightbox open from 3rd April until 3rd July. Visit their website for more information.