FOR THE first time in Ayrshire, and only the second time ever, the paintings by Alexander Goudie illustrating Burn's poem Tam o' Shanter are being exhibited in Rozelle House and The Maclaurin Gallery from January to March.

The 53 large paintings, each depicting parts of the poem, were painted in 1995 as the bicentenary of Burn's birth approached and were exhibited during the Edinburgh Festival in 1996.

The work was offered for sale in 1999 and was in danger of being broken up before a trio of benefactors, The Fraser Foundation, T B Hunter Charitable Trust and The Soutar Foundation stepped in with South Ayrshire Council to bring them back to Ayr to become part of the Council's permanent collection.

Alexander Goudie's son Lachlan Goudie, himself an artist, will open the exhibition on January 14. The exhibition runs to 18 March.

themaclaurin.org.uk

A DUNCAN of Jordanstone College of Art and Design graduate will have his work celebrated at the University of Dundee’s Lamb Gallery.

An exhibition of 86-year-old Alec Muir’s artwork, spanning seven decades, features Dundee scenes including 1970s Downfield, the Wellgate redevelopment and the more recent demolition of tenements throughout the city.

Muir enrolled at Dundee College of Art, now Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, at the age of 15 in 1945 and he had his first work exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1950.

Following his National Service, he worked for British Road Services before joining the process department of DC Thomson where he worked for six years. In 1963, Alec became an art teacher, working at both Linlathen High School and Morgan Academy.

He retired in 1988 and began to devote himself full time to painting.

The exhibition will be launched on Friday of this week at 5:30pm and runs until March 25.

www.dundee.ac.uk/museum/exhibitions/lamb/

GLASGOW artist Wei Shu Xin has won the £3000 Alexander Graham Munro Travel Award for the best painting submitted by an artist under 30 years old at the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour 136th Annual Exhibition, which is currently running at the Royal Scottish Academy Building in Edinburgh.

Other Glasgow artists winning awards were Sandi Anderson, who won the £1000 House for an Art Lover Award, Jennifer Irvine who won the £500 Sir William Gillies Award and John Kingsley, who received the £200 May Marshall Brown Award.

The City of Glasgow College Award was won by Edinburgh artist Ann Ross RSW for her work Aviary, inspired by memories of various birds and their simple or elaborate shelters, which will be purchased by the City of Glasgow College Art Foundation for the college collection.

Wei Shu Xin, 22, who was born in Hong Kong, is a postgraduate student at Glasgow School of Art who completed a BA Hons in drawing, painting and printmaking last year.

rsw.org.uk