SHORTLISTED FOR HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR SLIGHTLY FOXED FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2022
"An unexpected page-turner."
'A multifaceted portrait of an inspiring Scotland, an eccentric art world, and an entertaining author. A compelling and thought-provoking read that turned my porridge into a bowl of surreal.'
Kevin MacNeil, author of The Brilliant & Forever
'The story of Tony and his Gallery and also the modern day history of The Aird. I stayed up most of the night turning page after page. What a contribution you have made to art, to the life of the building and to the area. I'm glad it's been documented. Please write more!'
'A wonderful and well written book. Tony Davidson’s passion for art, the history of places and buildings and the weather-lashed beauty of the North of Scotland fills every chapter. The love is kneaded, as it always is, by moments of grief and lasting environmental anger.'
Confessions of a Highland Art Dealer
RRP: £8.99 (print) / £5.99 ebook)
ISBN 978-1-7396557-1-6
This is the story of a young, ambitious art dealer who transformed an unused rural church in Inverness-shire into one of the country’s top commercial art galleries. It begins with the enigmatic Black Allan opening the door of an abandoned kirk in rural Inverness-shire and follows with its shoestring-budget adaption to a new life, and it ends with an environmental call for change – a call for awakening.
Along the way, as Tony grows the gallery, we travel across Scotland and are introduced to the rarely seen world of Scottish artists. It suggests the purpose and beauty of what they do, and shows, with brilliant storytelling, one way to survive quarter of a century of rapid change. This is Tony Davidson’s debut novel.
Tony Davidson was born in 1967 in Edinburgh, moved to the Highlands in his twenties and opened the doors of Kilmorack Gallery in 1997. He has been writing about artists since then, looking for new ways to express what they do, and constantly reinventing the gallery to reflect our changing times. Confessions is his first book.
***
“I found myself in a rabbit-hole world when I wrote Confessions. This was in the surreal spring of lockdown and characters and times from the past flashed in front of me as I surveyed the past twenty-five years. It tells of how I was introduced to the disused old Kilmorack Church. These times were younger, without internet and mobile phones, and a glen and its people and a community of artists found their way into my life... and me into theirs.
A gallery's survival is dependent on reinvention and vision; and like the artists it represents, only the most tenacious survive, but this world is full of wonders. Artists and collectors are always close, but as a dealer you are separate, an observer that is responsible for building a house around their work.
This is a story which I have enjoyed telling and some parts of it are a story that should be told.”
Tony Davidson Director of Kilmorack Gallery and author of Confessions.