Born, London, 1958.
Glasgow School of Art, 1975-771979-81; Artist in Residence, University of St Andrews1985, Part-time Tutor, Glasgow School of Art; appointed official British war artist for Bosnia, 1993; Lord Provost’s Medal, Glasgow, 1995; awarded Doctor of Letters Honoras Causa, University of Strathclyde, 1996.
Peter Howson was born in London and moved with his family to Prestwick, Ayrshire, when Howson was aged four. He spent a short time as an infantry soldier in the Royal Highland Fusiliers but left to study at the Glasgow School of Art in 1979 where, alongside contemporaries such as Adrian Wiszniewski, Steven Campbell and Ken Currie, he worked in figurative art.
His work has encompassed a number of themes. His early works are typified by very masculine working class men, most famously in The Heroic Dossier (1987). Later he was the official war artist for the Bosnian civil war, producing some of his most shocking and controversial work detailing the war’s atrocities.
In recent years his work has exhibited a strong religious theme linked to his recovery from alcoholism in 2000, after which he converted to Christianity. Howson also has Asperger syndrome.
His work is exhibited in many major collections and is in the private collection of celebrities such as David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Madonna who inspired a number of paintings in 2002.