The Madness of Peter Howson ArtWorks Scotland

Peter Howson is one of the world's most collected living artists.

His work hangs on the walls of galleries and museums

and in the homes of rock stars and actors.

He's a man with a turbulent past and a present

haunted by financial problems and worries about his mental health.

I understood what it was like to be in the mind of a madman.

It's not a nice place to be.

In 2008, he received the biggest commission of his career,

to paint the largest ever crowd scene in the history of British art.

But the commission is fraught with so much difficulty

that its completion is in jeopardy from day one.

It's a big painting. It feels even bigger now, you know.

It feels like a monster now.

This film follows Peter over two difficult years,

a journey that took him to the brink of bankruptcy and also to the edge of his sanity.

You don't know what I'm like. You don't know how mad I am.

The way I start painting is in this way,

to get the whole thing covered, the whole canvas covered,

with a stain, I suppose, of some kind of colour, you know.

This is my favourite colour, because it's got a warmth

that comes through, this kind of reddy-brown oxide.

And then I use a rag to really paint light and it's really, you know,

just to get the drawing right, I suppose, and get the kind of feeling right.

Peter Howson is one of Britain's most prolific artists,

a figurative painter, often working on a grand scale, with thousands of works of art to his name.

Peter still stands outside the, kind of, what would one say,

the polite conventions of contemporary art.

He's a no-holds-barred artist.

There's no...

there's no fudging. This is the way he sees it.

It's always amusing to me,

all the celebrities that are named as having bought Peter's works

and I can't verify all of them.

I know in the early years, it was Sylvester Stallone.

And I remember meeting Stallone at a Los Angeles art fair

and he walked by our booth and he stopped with his two henchmen

and looked at this wonderful, amazing boxer painting of Peter's and admired it.

And I probably told Peter that and he probably mentioned it to a journalist and the journalist

probably mentioned that Sylvester Stallone collected Peter's works.

And once it's in one newspaper, it stays in those newspapers for ever.

I can tell you, from my personal experience, that David Bowie has bought the work and is a big fan.

Madonna is a very major fan and he's a very well collected artist.

When I saw this man, I thought,

"Now, I want to buy a painting". And they're quite expensive for me.

But when I had job

and I had some money, I would invest it in a work of art

of Howson. So I became a collector.

Having Howson in my life has, in some way,

given me a sense of what I am, what I care for, even who I am.

We need artists like we need lightning rods on the roof of houses.

They take the lightning of the world and hold it.

And then we look at them and we feel enriched and we feel this power,

without being struck by the lightning.

It is the artist who is struck and burnt

and scarred by the lightning.

Peter's uncompromising and emotional painting style comes directly from his own life experience.

In the past, he has battled with alcohol and drug addiction and had financial problems.

After years of mental illness, he has recently been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome,

a form of autism characterised by difficulties in dealing with other people.

The reason why I draw is to remain sane, because...

and paint, because it keeps me on the right kind of track, I suppose, you know.

Peter's work observes a darker side of life,

celebrations of the common man, depicting a very human struggle.

He takes, the kind of, our environment

in a way no other Brit has even come near to doing.

I think Howson goes further, because he illuminates for us

the actual essence of what it is to be British.

It's almost biblical.

I started painting and drawing when I was about four years old.

I'd done a crucifixion when I was six, so I suppose,

even then, even at that early age,

the crucifixion meant something to me.

Peter's paintings often had Christian overtones,

but these became much more overt when he had a spiritual revelation

after nearly dying in re-hab for treatment of drink and drug addiction in the year 2000.

I was in a terrible state.

I was pretty near the point where I, you know, would have probably

conked out and they gave me all these anti-psychotic drugs.

I was starting to see big, sort of, furry, pink rabbits

coming into the room and everything. And it was the DTs and all that.

And then I just, one night, got down on my hands and knees and said a prayer to,

basically, take away this skin off me, this whole thing, and just shed my skin.

And, basically, I had this vision, basically, of this incredible feeling came into the room.

Nothing like an angel appeared, but it was certainly a presence.

All it said was that,

"You're loved, you're cured.

"You'll never drink again or you'll never take a drug again.

"You won't not suffer again, but I'm with you, basically."

And for the next three months after that, from that night onwards,

the vision came to me every night.

In October 2008, the Catholic Church made the contentious decision

to pick Peter - a Protestant and a reformed addict - to paint a massive eight-metre-high canvas

depicting the martyrdom of St John Ogilvie, as part of the renovation of St Andrews Cathedral in Glasgow.

John Ogilvie was the only Catholic priest martyred in Scotland after the Reformation.

In 1615, he was hung and then disembowelled in Glasgow,

after being found guilty of treason, for holding Catholic mass.

When I came down to Glasgow, about seven years ago, as the Archbishop,

and saw that the cathedral needed some renovation and improvement and so on -

it's nearly 200 years old and is in need of it -

I looked around and was surprised not to find something

in the cathedral to mark the life of St John Ogilvie.

And he was martyred here in Glasgow, not very far from this cathedral.

And then, of course,

I began to be interested in the work of Peter Howson.

His talent, in the sort of expression

and the vigour of his style

and the crowd scenes and the passion he's able to put into his paintings,

and yet a tenderness, which I've seen in more recent work,

I think is just the ideal quality,

the ideal characteristics for the painting we're conceiving.

The painting, although commissioned for the cathedral, was never going to be paid for by the Church.

Instead, Peter's management devised a plan that required him to paint ten smaller canvases

which would be sold to fund the massive Ogilvie commission.

Peter agrees to go along with this extremely ambitious plan,

despite his state of mind and his financial situation.

Any doubts he has on the funding are outweighed by his desire to paint a large sacred work.

First of all a word of welcome,

welcome to you who have come to hear of the project

we have proposed for the cathedral.

And I'm very grateful indeed for the enthusiasm which Peter Howson has shown towards this project

and the way in which he is already, as it were, entering into something of the sense and significance

of St John Ogilvie's life, in order to portray it within our cathedral.

The Ogilvie project will be the biggest single painting of Peter's career.

Along with the ten other canvases to fund the commission, it is a massive endeavour for any artist

and an even greater one for someone in Peter's fragile mental and financial state.

Since I was very young,

I've wanted to do a major painting for the church.

You know, I've been looking, since I was very young,

at Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

and I'd love to do something like that, something major.

That sounds very big headed, but I suppose I am big headed, in a way!

ISLAMIC CALL TO PRAYER

To seek inspiration before starting the Ogilvie commission,

Peter makes a rare journey away from his routine in Glasgow,

to accompany the archbishop on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

This is the old city of Jerusalem in front of us. This is my favourite city in the world.

That is the centre of the planet for me and it's where I can feel so much excitement and joy,

at times, but it's tension mainly, because this city could explode

at any point, really, with all the factions.

Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On Earth as it is in Heaven...

This is the start of the Stations of the Cross.

It's difficult to get an idea of that, you know,

and there's a cross waiting for us over there, as well.

I can't equate any of this to what I'm going to be doing

with John Ogilvie, really. Just, it'll be...

All I'm trying to do is get some kind of peace and inspiration here,

I suppose, but I'm agitated quite a lot of the time, still,

with big crowds of people. But I'm still enjoying it, though.

I suppose I'm enjoying getting annoyed probably, you know.

You see, the problem with Christian art, you know,

when you buy your souvenirs around Bethlehem or Jerusalem,

Jesus is always seen as being slightly weak and pretty.

And it's kitschy, the art, really, you know.

The real Jesus wasn't like that at all. The real Jesus was a wild man.

The difficulty for artists is to capture that, you know,

to see the real Jesus. I mean, the guide was saying

people are looking for Jesus in the various places.

They're looking for a footprint here or, you know,

a hand mark there or a thumb print or a sign of him, a stone,

a marking, anywhere, you know. And they can never find him.

You just can't do it.

I'm under a huge amount of stress

and this gives me a lot of spiritual energy, really.

It comes down from above. That's the way...

I feel strong, I feel strong again.

I can go back to Glasgow now and I can kick ass, if you don't mind.

Oh, sorry, I shouldn't have said that!

Peter returns to Glasgow, but doesn't begin work on the Ogilvie commission.

Even three months after the project was announced, he is nowhere near

starting the main canvas, never mind the ten smaller ones,

to be sold to fund the project.

Instead, he's keeping himself busy completing other work in his studio.

Peter hasn't started the John Ogilvie painting because he has had a row

with his local management over the funding of the project.

Basically I'm getting rid of the people that take care of me,

who thought they were involved in this commission.

They are no longer doing this commission, they are out,

as far as I'm concerned, and I'm dealing with the Catholic church,

me and them, which is the way I always wanted to do it.

These people think they made me, for some reason.

They come along three or four years ago and they think,

"this guy's a fool and we're going to make him," you know.

-Do you want to say who they were?

-No, I can't say who they were.

Peter has realised that the original plan,

to deliver ten paintings to fund the cathedral commission,

is not financially viable

and leads to him leaving his management and going it alone.

The financial deal wasn't any good.

It wasn't going to work, basically, so it's no fault of the Church, or anything like that.

Basically what it is, is that I'm probably going to end up

gifting the painting to the Church...

..and that will remove any difficulties, except for financial.

It'll create financial difficulties, We'll have to find sponsorship.

I'll have to find it to pay for the thing to be done, you know, as it's going to cost a lot of money to do -

about 80,000, possibly, maybe even 100,000.

So it's building up the frustration nicely, you know, so that there'll be a...

When it finally happens, it'll be a blast, you know.

Peter's formal training to be an artist began when he was 17,

as a student at the Glasgow School of Art.

But he became disillusioned and left to join the army,

before returning to finish his course four years later.

I think it was pretty obvious that he had a talent,

the first time I actually spoke to him and saw his work.

And he had hundreds and hundreds of drawings and paintings...

of the landscape, etc, etc.

We were looking through, but it was like he was doing them almost by, he was doing them in his sleep.

He could do this.

And I felt he should be doing something else.

And we were looking through some sketch book

and there were a group of drawings of, really just rough drawings,

of memories of barrack life, being in the army.

And I said, "This is what you should be doing."

The army was pretty bad. It was the actual bullying that I couldn't take.

It wasn't me being bullied, it was other people being bullied.

The fact is, you know, I just didn't like the brutality.

I think we've got some of the first real successful images

of army life, really, when he really,

I think, maybe towards the end of his fourth year.

And this is when you think, "Whoa, this guy's...

"He's an important artist, he's got something to say.

"You know, he counts."

What Howson says now is something we've got to look at, really think about.

After art school, Peter came to global prominence as an artist as one of the new Glasgow Boys.

And in 1993, he was the subject of a BBC documentary, when he was chosen

to be the official war artist in the Bosnian civil war.

GUNSHOTS

His experiences in Bosnia not only changed his art, but his whole life.

I was talking to Terry about Bosnia the other night.

She thinks it's going to scar me for the rest of my life.

From the time he was selected until now,

it has been an appalling time.

Not from the point of view of being worried about him

or anything like that, just the way he's champing at the bit to go.

Oh, oh, three of them.

Lucy sees it as being a business trip, really.

Her daddy goes off to London, he goes to America.

It's just another trip.

She'll wander around happily saying, "My daddy's off to Bosnia".

It's only when you're confronted face to face and flesh to flesh that you actually realise

the true situation in Bosnia, the horror of the situation, when it's staring you in the face.

Two people killed,

the driver of the bus there and a man who was also killed.

And that's, er, that's what's left of him there.

This area is occasionally, as you've just heard, under shell fire,

-so if you want to do your sketch. It's just we don't spend too much time.

-No, no.

And that grey object is the man's brains down there, in case you're interested.

I can't sketch this, really.

You just take it in, I think.

There's no way I can watch this.

Bosnia definitely had a deep and profound effect on Peter.

He was a troubled man before that...

..but my sense is that, when he came back, he was a little lost.

And although it actually brought about one the most powerful groups of work that he ever produced,

it did really bring about the end of his relationship with his wife.

When he went to Bosnia,

he changed so dramatically that I didn't know him.

With Peter, people telling him a story, he sees the story,

so, you know, even if he'd only heard about some atrocity,

it would be living large in his head and it really

badly, badly affected him.

Bosnia had so traumatised him

that nothing meant anything to him any more.

And that was when we split up.

He just walked out, disappeared, leaving behind Lucy, who just... He didn't want to know us.

It was like a catalyst for both of them.

The trauma of Bosnia

made Peter's Asperger's Syndrome,

to me, much more in your face.

And also Lucy's autism became more extreme because of

the devastation to her of losing her father at the time.

I loved her, and I was worried about her,

but I didn't know how to handle it

and so I just kind of left her to everyone else to take care of,

you know, and I just visited her and had her up every now and then.

But now she's become a permanent part of my life and, you know,

I'm learning so much now from her.

I think that's a marked domino.

Lucy is now 24 and divides her time between her mother's home

and at Peter's house, with his new partner, Annie.

This is my bedroom. It's the biggest room in the house.

And this is work that Peter's given me since we met.

This is a Valentine card, which, I suppose, seems a bit strange,

because it's as if it's a down and out, but it's actually reaching forward

and the hearts are just flowing out of where his heart is.

You can see the wee red hearts here and it's as if he's, sort of,

throwing himself towards, towards me, maybe. I hope it's me.

This was actually meant to be the matrimonial bedroom...

..but we're not married yet and maybe we will and maybe we won't.

We're happy as we are.

But I sleep in here and Peter's got his room.

And it works fine.

So, I share this bed with the dog.

You know, Annie and I have had our problems, as well,

because it's difficult for her to live with me like this.

You don't know me. You don't know what I'm like.

You're not filming me all the time, you know.

You don't know what I'm like. You don't know how mad I am.

It's four months after the Ogilvie commission was announced

and no paint has even come close to a canvas.

With the cost of the paint alone running to tens of thousands of pounds, Peter is worried.

It's the money. The money's running out.

I'm quite confident that things will work out, Peter.

-Well, "quite" isn't good enough for me.

-Well, I'm very sure.

All right, brilliant. Thank you.

'Nitro-glycerine.

'I mean, that's what you're, literally, handling when you're'

round about Peter. It's like handling nitro.

You can say one wrong word and it blows up in your face.

After years of struggling with his mental health,

Peter was officially diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in early 2009.

Asperger's Syndrome's a form of autism.

It manifests itself in difficulties with social interaction.

This is a hidden disability.

People with autism spectrum disorders,

there's nothing physical about it and so, society views that person

as looking so-called "normal" and places certain expectations.

And when people don't meet those expectations, that is when things become more fraught and difficult.

People think that people with autism, or Asperger's, are thick.

I think they are very naive

and very literal in the way that they take things.

And, in a way, that's the way Peter is.

He's so intelligent, and so well read, but there is this naivety.

He's so trusting.

The one thing I am sure of is that, whatever condition I've got, if it's Asperger's or just

a wee bit of madness, is that it certainly makes the paintings vital to me

and gives me tremendous inspiration.

These are things from a while ago. This is like sketch books, you know, these are all the lists I make up.

My whole thing really is

work, work, work, work, work, draw, draw, draw.

There's lots and lots of these sketch books about.

A few years ago, I probably would've flogged these for a hundred quid each

and some guy would've been laughing all the way to the bank.

That's what happens. People come into my studio,

they buy things off me, or they have done.

And they go out of the studio and before they even leave the studio

I can actually feel that they've got the laughter, almost, as if I'm some kind of fool.

That's the way I feel in my, kind of, more bitter moments.

It's business that is the problem for me. Always has been.

Basically, I'm, kind of, open to all sorts of philanderers

and conmen to come and buy things off me very cheaply.

When situations are far more complex,

when the stakes are a lot higher,

where they're involving large sums of money,

Peter is more significantly impaired and, therefore, it renders him

more vulnerable, if somebody is wishing to take advantage of that.

Peter has been royally shafted over the years by so many people

that I couldn't even begin to start.

He's lost millions upon millions of pounds worth of earnings,

but also he's lost some credibility, as well,

because of what's happened to him in business.

Not every piece Peter produces is great and, sometimes,

unfinished works have left the studio

because collectors or dealers have been eager to buy work before Peter's even finished it.

But the well-considered works of Peter are his really strong pieces

and at a certain time, the right curator will come along and will put together a major

retrospective of Peter's work and he will be recognised as one of the great painters of our time.

Six months after the commission was announced, work still hasn't started on the painting.

Peter has been unable to work at all,

following a complete physical collapse and being rushed into hospital in an ambulance.

Under doctor's orders, he is forced to rest at home.

BARKING

Would you like...? I take it you would.

Do you want a bite? Come on.

He felt as though he was having a stroke.

They did all these different tests and things and the result was

they said he shouldn't work for three months.

It's been confirmed, I suppose, that it's like a breakdown of sorts,

really - a mental and a physical breakdown, you know, where your brain just shuts down.

I couldn't talk properly or think properly.

I couldn't read, write, even walk properly,

for quite a few days.

I mean, I don't know what will happen.

You know, it's in the kind of, it just depends if I can recover.

He's an incredibly good man, with all this strangeness,

this ephemera, this madness, all channelling away all around him.

But if he didn't have that, then he couldn't create those paintings.

So, while he suffers, we benefit.

One month after his collapse, Peter has the opening of a special exhibition of his work,

at the Museum of Art and Religious Life in Glasgow.

In collaboration with the Catholic Church,

this series of paintings depicts the Irish Famine,

from both sides of the religious divide.

When I woke up this morning, I thought, "Oh, to hell with this, I don't really want to go in today."

But, being a bit of a stoic, I suppose, I thought, "Well, to hell with it,

"if I drop dead today, then at least I'll have made it in."

I'm excited. This is a new show and it does tie in

with the John Ogilvie project.

Really this is like, the first stage, in a way, you know.

A lot of people perceive the Irish Famine

as being thousands and thousands of Catholics starving to death.

Well, I mean, the reality is that there was many, many Protestants died in that famine, as well.

There is this kind of huge sectarian problem in Glasgow,

so basically this is an anti-sectarian exhibition, really.

This is the first stage to me getting back to health.

This proves that I'm back, really, you know.

I've got a very good psychologist.

I've been pronounced clinically mad and all my financial affairs

have been taken over by a board of trustees, under a guardianship,

so I'm very happy.

The guardianship is in two parts.

Peter's business affairs are now being overseen by a formal lawyer

and his welfare by his psychologist, Michael McCreadie.

One of the first things I did when I met Peter was to say to him,

"You're incredibly vulnerable here

"and there has to be things put in place that will really, kind of,

prevent money just haemorrhaging out of your life.

It's eight months since the Ogilvie commission was announced and Peter still hasn't started the painting.

His mental state and the strain of severing links with his

ex-management are magnified when the story hits the front page.

Something's come out in the press, you know, in one of

the tabloids, The News of the World, about this kind of problem that we've been having, you know.

And it's hit.. the shit's hit the fan, I suppose.

Ever since I've known Peter,

there has been stress with him and his work.

But I think Peter quite likes stress.

But over the last so many months, it has been to do with -

and I don't know if I should say this - to do with management that he's had.

The main thing is to get on with the John Ogilvie commission,

you know, and just do that and just forget about all this stuff.

This stuff will just go away, you know, and people,

people forget things, you know.

It is now nine months since the Ogilvie commission was announced

and the archbishop intervenes to try and break the deadlock.

We've been able to put, at his disposal, a now disused church,

which will act as his studio for some ten years.

And he's delighted at that prospect.

The Ogilvie painting is planned to be eight metres high

and Peter's own studio isn't big enough to take work of this size.

This payment in kind, of larger studio space from the Church,

should at last enable Peter to start the painting.

-We need to be able to get a canvas nine by seven in through the doors. That's kind of...

-I'll check that.

All right, we'll check that. And this is going to be the main area where John Ogilvie is painted on here.

The easel will go there.

And through there is the more secret place, where no-one else gets through.

It's a bit of a weird way of doing it, because it means that anyone

that comes in immediately sees John Ogilvie, but that's fine.

Through there I'll store stuff and I'll maybe do other sketches and drawings.

Peter is visiting his new studio space for the first time,

with his full-time assistants, Douglas and John.

My impressions of this place are very positive and I'm excited about it.

In fact, my voice is almost going a wee bit higher. I'm, yes, I'm excited. I am.

I've got all these big drawings at home of John Ogilvie.

I was just trying to get his face right, because who knows what he looked like.

And it's whether to do him as he would have been, or whether you have to,

kind of, slightly, kind of, heroise him a bit

or prettify him a bit, because obviously he would have been bashed about a lot.

He'd been tortured for seven or eight days, I think.

So he would have been in a terrible physical condition by the time he was hung.

I don't want to get too, kind of, overconfident,

but this is the place where John Ogilvie will be painted

and it's...exciting.

Everything's moving ahead. I've been drawing,

I've been drawing away, just various drawings,

just to get the...to get the, kind of, a shape, really, a shape of the...of the martyrdom.

It's quite difficult, actually.

The most important drawing so far is probably this one.

And this is the...

..you're kind of getting more into the actual feeling of the thing.

Things are moving and it's, you know, we've got the studio.

I've just ordered the canvas and, basically,

it's going to be 27 feet high and ten feet across.

It's quite daunting, that size of a canvas, isn't it?

You know, it is quite daunting and I have to get...

Douglas has got the job of getting it into the studio.

Now, we're going to have to somehow get it in.

What we've had to do, because the sizes of the canvases are huge,

we've had to actually slab a hole right along the wall

so that we can... just like a letter box.

We're going to have to pass the canvases through.

Once they're in the new studio safely, I'll be quite happy.

Ten years of... Basically, I'll be 61 by the time we leave this place.

That's if we ever get the John Ogilvie painted.

Despite all this effort, Peter turned down the offer

from the archdiocese and decided not to use this as a studio, after all.

The blank canvases are still inside.

Almost a year after the announcement of the commission,

Peter has decided to paint the Ogilvie on a smaller scale - and in his own studio.

But he's still worried about raising the tens of thousands of pounds

the materials will cost to start the painting.

He has decided to sell his own book collection to help the fund raising.

I shouldn't be selling it, but I need the money.

There's a control freak. I tried to stay away, but I can't stay away, really, so...

What the hell's happening? Is it going to go in the cupboard?!

The truth is that it's the worst organised commission I've ever been given in my life.

I feel as if every single ounce of energy in me has been sapped by it.

As the auction of Peter's books is being prepared, he gets an unexpected summons to London.

I'm in London to collect my OBE today.

And the Queen has requested my presence at 10.20.

'I've been quite nervous, quite nervous now, but not as nervous as I was last night.'

I'm just really proud of him, really.

The idea of fame

or recognition or honour doesn't really...

it has a, kind of, certain hollow ring to it at the moment,

because of all the troubles that we've been through the last few years, especially the last year.

I mean, the ironic thing is that

I'm getting an OBE today and I'm having to sell a lot

of family possessions to raise money, at the moment.

I'm also slightly worried in case I run amok in Buckingham Palace.

Is that likely? >

Not likely. I would say 99.9% certain that it won't happen.

But there's always a chance. I've taken my tablet.

Oh, it's exciting, isn't it?

-It's exciting now.

-It's exciting.

-It is.

-Security, I love security Anything to do with security, I love.

Do you want me to get my OBE out or what? Yeah?

Could you hold this? I can't fold that.

-No, of course, you can't.

-I've lost it.

-Might get a good price for it on eBay, maybe.

-Oh!

I need the money, though.

It was a very beautiful ceremony. It was amazingly spectacular.

I was very impressed with it.

I was worried in case my pants were getting stuck up my trousers, as well, when I was doing it.

-Or I had diarrhoea or something.

-Oh, Peter!

-What?

A whole year after the Ogilvie commission was announced, and with the guardianship

now giving Peter more stability, financially and psychologically, he doesn't need to worry

about money for the Ogilvie commission. Now, all he has to do is paint it.

-Come on, son.

-I've done my back in.

-He's done his back in.

But I'll be OK. Don't you worry.

It's just when I'm sitting down in the car.

Right, I need to get a corset.

A nice frilly one.

So is there anything special happening today?

Aye. A very important day.

An important day, because I'm starting John Ogilvie today.

'I realised the key to things over the next...is me getting into work.

'And I haven't really been doing that, lately, at all.

I've been kind of moping at home and the physical act of painting

'and, you know, mental activity, is probably what I need at the moment.'

I made the decision, if I don't do the John Ogilvie, people will gradually,

you know, take sides with, whereas a Protestant like me doing the, working for the Church, the Catholic Church,

will hopefully bring people together, especially if I can do a good job on it.

I'm giving it away for nothing. It's a gift. It's an eight by six.

It's going to be smaller,

a lot smaller than the actual

original kind of plan, you know.

Originally, when the press conference took place, it was going to be

the largest crowd scene ever painted in Scotland.

Well, it's probably going to be the smallest crowd scene ever painted

in Scotland now, because I'm just going to probably do John Ogilvie

and we'll be the crowd, you know. The people that see it will be the crowd.

Let's get on with it.

MUSIC: "Cochise" by Audioslave

# Go on and save yourself

# And take it out on me

# Go on and save yourself

# And take it out on me

# Go on and save yourself

# And take it out on me

# Go on and save yourself

# And take it out on me

# Go on and save yourself

# And take it out on me

# Go on and save yourself

# And take it out on me

# Go on and save yourself

# And take it out on me

# Yeah. #

I didn't expect to get quite as much done.

But I wasn't tentative today about it.

I was right, kind of, psyched up and, you know, anything, the only thing, that would have stopped me

coming in was probably, you know, like having

something happening to Lucy or something, or an accident, or an epileptic fit or something.

So I was all set for... I was raring to go.

So it's gone well.

It's just a start, really, isn't it? It's what happens after this.

The start can be quite easy sometimes.

It's what happens after that.

As Peter forges ahead with the painting,

the cathedral renovation is progressing slowly.

The announcement of the papal visit has added pressure to the schedule.

The stage they're at, at the moment,

after having taken down so much, they're now replacing things,

restoring things,

putting a new floor down, looking to high level work.

Windows have been taken out. They'll be replaced very shortly.

It's at the stage of, I think, over the top, shall we say, of the hill.

The date, hopefully, for completion is now mid-September.

It was the end of September, but with the thought of the Holy Father coming and the possibility

of his looking in en route, we would like to get it finished by mid-September.

Peter's enthusiasm is re-fired, I think,

and I gather from friends, who have actually seen the work,

that it is, possibly, going to be one of his finest works.

I haven't seen it yet and I don't want to press him, until he's ready to show it to me.

It's looking a bit, at the moment, it's looking a wee bit

raw and cartoon-like, I suppose, in a way, a bit caricature, almost.

So, I have to get away from that.

I'm just wondering whether it's possible to, for me to, to actually go beyond that, you know.

I'm just trying to make this painting as if he's just about to meet his death, you know,

and he's, you know, he's been through all this torture.

Everyone's really been very kind to me.

They've all been very understanding and I hope they're not going

to be horrified when they see it, this painting.

I hope it will move people to,

to be healed by the power of John Ogilvie.

When I was young, I was obsessed with death.

I thought the world was going to end when I was about 13,

12, 13 years old, and I decided I was going to do 12 last paintings before the end of the world, you know.

I was excited about it. It was not something that I was frightened of. But I frightened everyone else.

I mean, the idea of painting, if you think the world's not going to be here.

It cannot be then said that I paint for posterity

or for money or for, you know, for any kind of worldly fame.

I'm not really interested in that.

The reason why I paint is because my paintings change people's lives and if I can do one painting

that can change someone's life then that's my function.

When you think of the totality of Peter's work, it's awesome.

I mean, this particular commission.

How many contemporary artists could do that...

..are capable of doing that?

Not very many.

After nine months work, and despite the Ogilvie canvas being complete in most people's eyes,

Peter keeps on changing the painting.

What stage is the painting at for you?

It's at the shite stage.

I've been ranting and raving all day.

I've, kind of, forgotten how to paint, I think.

Sometimes you've got to go through these stages of...

..absolute hell to get there, you know.

It's changed quite a lot since you last saw it.

It was looking all, looking too cartoony, I suppose,

and I wasn't pushing myself to the absolute limit.

It's a big painting and it feels even bigger now, you know.

It feels like a monster now.

If you see it in a mirror, you can see whether a painting is balanced or not.

You can see all the mistakes in it. And it's a horrific sight sometimes.

'It's just quite ironic that it's being gifted to the Church

'and it's causing me this amount of anguish,

'I suppose, you know, just to do it, do the painting.'

HE SIGHS

Right... Thank you, time to go.

But Peter wasn't quite finished for the day.

So what, kind of, got you going there?

Just a need to really destroy it, to rebuild, you know.

I think the main thing was to get rid of the prettiness of the colours

and the, you know, the prettiness of the subject,

because it is a grim subject matter, you know.

Focus on John Ogilvie, which is I think what it has done now.

I like it better, anyway. Aye, it's definitely all right.

Right, big man, see you in the morning.

That last 20 minutes there, it was quite,

it was like watching a Mike Tyson fight.

It was exciting, because you didn't know what he was going to do.

You didn't know if he was going to just smash right through the canvas,

there was that much energy going into it, you know.

And to have that confidence to be able to do that,

I mean, especially on such a thing as large as that,

and the amount of work and time that he's put into it.

I was only kidding him on when I said to him this morning,

"There must be 20 grand's worth of paint on it." But there's got to be ten grand's worth on it.

Despite all the delays in starting, and months of work,

Peter continues to paint out the figure on the canvas.

I went in the next morning and I did even more,

but I buggered it up again, so then I started getting

more and more frustrated and I just completely covered it over -

almost destroyed it.

And so actually I've done another one, basically, and then started this other one as the other one

was starting to go downhill. So I spent a week from start to finish

on a John Ogilvie and it's better than the one I worked months on.

The main thing is John Ogilvie is there

and it's much, much better and more moving than the other one was.

I'm trying not to smile here.

-Are you pleased with it?

-Aye.

After nearly two years, the Ogilvie is finally complete.

A canvas a fifth the size of the original plan, but complete, nonetheless.

With the unveiling planned to coincide with the papal visit, there is a final setback.

Three months before the Pope comes to Glasgow,

the main contractor for the cathedral renovation goes into administration,

with the loss of 170 jobs.

This will delay the completion date by at least six months.

Given this delay, and with other work stacking up for Peter,

the decision is made to unveil the painting at the archdiocese offices in Glasgow.

Are you nervous about the unveiling?

I'm nervous, yeah.

I mean, when I first came in here, to tell the truth,

it didn't look as good as I thought it was going to look.

But I'm gradually warming to it again.

It's quite emotional, I suppose, as well,

because it's the end of a chapter, beginning of a new chapter.

It's about time I got on to a new chapter, because this one's starting to get really boring.

It's a great afternoon for us.

At last,

here in the Eyre Hall, we are able to unveil

Peter Howson's gift of the painting of the martyrdom of St John Ogilvie.

Well, thank you very much, Your Grace.

Eh... I hope you like it, actually.

LAUGHTER

If there's a dead silence, then I know that you don't.

No, it's, it's a long, it has been a long journey.

Two years, in fact.

And I'll tell you a wee bit about it.

It was going to be a lot bigger

and it was going to be one of the largest crowd scenes

in art history.

It sounds a bit pompous saying that.

I worked on a painting for about nine months, almost,

and then, in one moment of absolute madness,

I completely destroyed it, after nine months' work.

But luckily, a bit like Blue Peter, I had one already prepared earlier.

LAUGHTER

I don't know what more I can say, apart from unveiling it, really.

But thank you all for coming and this is the dodgy bit, in case it falls over.

APPLAUSE

This is very much more an invitation to engage spiritually

with someone who, for his faith, was prepared to go to the gallows.

He's always searching for something new and I think

that's something that keeps me,

as a fan

and a dealer in his work, interested.

I'm never quite sure what to expect.

He's an asset.

In this time of such puerile,

pathetic expressions of what we call art -

it is almost disgusting.

And I say, "Thank God for Peter Howson."

It's a very difficult thing to do, obviously -

paint a religious image for the 21st century.

How difficult is that? But most artists couldn't even

contemplate doing something like this, but he's done it.

So I think we have to take our hat off to Peter Howson, once again.

I've been through a hellish time. It's a dark period.

It sounds a bit melodramatic, talking about me, me, me and my health.

But I've been, the first time in my life,

about two months ago,

I felt suicidal.

I've fought my way through this.

I'm still not completely out of the woods, as they say...

..but I'm recovering now.

I understood what it was like to be in the mind of a madman.

It's not a very nice place to be.

I'd like to get a bit of joy back in my life now, somehow,

and stop being a miserable bastard.

It's difficult, though.

MUSIC: "Fool's Gold" by The Stone Roses

Subtitles By Red Bee Media Ltd

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