First published in 1926, 2026 marks the centenary of the poem, an epic work written in MacDiarmid’s synthetic Scots that would prove a landmark in the story of modern Scottish literature. Alexander Moffat’s paintings range from 1978 when he made drawings of the poet in his home at Brownsbank Cottage near Biggar and continue into the present with paintings of MacDiarmid and his close colleagues from the Borders, William Johnstone and Francis George Scott. The three ‘Border Guards’ launched the Scottish Renaissance of the early 1920s and beyond. F G Scott was not only MacDiarmid’s schoolteacher in Langholm, he was the originator of the idea of a drunk man looking at a thistle and assisted with the editing and final structure of the poem. Born in Dunfermline, Moffat studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1960 to 64. Alongside his friend John Bellany, Moffat emerged as one of the Scottish Realists, so-called because of their social awareness and rejection of the decorative principles that defined much Scottish art during the first half of the 20th century. Moffat was particularly close to the poet Hugh MacDiarmid and his literary circle. From 1979 Moffat taught at Glasgow School of Art where he encouraged a new generation of Scottish figurative painters including Peter Howson, Ken Currie and Steven Campbell.

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