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Lot Essay
Alexander Millar was born and grew up in a small mining community outside Kilmarnock on the west coast of Scotland. Millar's father worked for British Rail, and the artist's earliest memories were spent observing working men in their natural environment. Now residing in Newcastle, it is precisely this everyday routine of the working man which Millar seeks to depict in his paintings, and no more so in the present work. Through his use of light and masterful brushstrokes, we are presented with a jubilant crown of Newcastle football fans, celebrating the 'beautiful game'. This is a scene at once reminiscent of a bygone era, yet at the same time a timeless expression of the soul of working men around the world.
'Even as a wee boy I was always fascinated by the small details I saw in everyday life and would stand in awe at something as insignificant as an old man getting off a bike, an old woman with bad hips struggling on and off the bus with her big shopping bag and children hand in hand or the way the street drunk would stand at the corner of the local pub ... It was like the street had become a huge choreographed dance routine that was being produced all for me and made what seemed to everyone else just an ordinary event became in my eyes a Hollywood blockbuster tinted in glorious Technicolour...that is the whole premise of the work that I produce in that I still take delight in turning the “ordinary” into something “extraordinary”' (A. Millar, https://alexandermillar.com/about/ [accessed Feb 18, 2018]).
'Even as a wee boy I was always fascinated by the small details I saw in everyday life and would stand in awe at something as insignificant as an old man getting off a bike, an old woman with bad hips struggling on and off the bus with her big shopping bag and children hand in hand or the way the street drunk would stand at the corner of the local pub ... It was like the street had become a huge choreographed dance routine that was being produced all for me and made what seemed to everyone else just an ordinary event became in my eyes a Hollywood blockbuster tinted in glorious Technicolour...that is the whole premise of the work that I produce in that I still take delight in turning the “ordinary” into something “extraordinary”' (A. Millar, https://alexandermillar.com/about/ [accessed Feb 18, 2018]).