Post-War Scotland

Boy and Brazier, Gorbals 1968

 
Oscar Marzaroli (1933–1988), an Italian-born photographer whose family immigrated to Scotland when he was a child, captured post-World War II, urban Glasgow with a powerful lens. The Bourne Fine Art Gallery featured his work, especially that of 1958-68, in an exhibition last November. I didn't blog about it at the time, but the photographs wriggled there way into my brain and have implanted themselves permanently it would seem. A sampling of that exhibition can be found here.

Flitting Gorbals 1965

Golden Haired Lass

Boy and Pram, Gorbals 1964

Further, Marzaroli's work has inspired a diverse group of artistic endeavors. Ricky Ross, Scottish singer-songwriter and member of Deacon Blue, has recorded Marzaroli's influence in an audio tribute that includes interviews with Oscar's wife Anne and others with whom Marzaroli was intimate. Among other things, friends and family remember him as "very tall...very charming...cut[ting] quite an exotic figure."

Fisherman in Boat

Liz Peden, a teacher at the Global Arts Project, found inspiration in Marzaroli's original photograph "Gorbals Boys 1963." She re-imagines this "iconic photograph" through a three-part sculpture made of chrome and bronze that recreates the three, dusty boys captured playing in their mother's high heels through the streets within Marzaroli's photograph. Her work is also entitled "Gorbals Boys."

Gorbals Boys 1963

Liz Peden's "Gorbals Boys"