Exhibition is proving to be a real winner

Thousands of people have flocked to see the landmark Alexander Goudie Tam o’ Shanter exhibition in Alloway.

In the last six weeks over 10,000 people have marvelled at the 54 larger than life paintings which are on display at Rozelle House and the Maclaurin Art Gallery. The free exhibition runs until Sunday, March 12, so you still have time to catch it.

This is only the second time in their history that all of Goudie’s celebrated paintings in the South Ayrshire Council collection have been on public display.

Councillor Bill Grant, economic development, tourism and leisure spokesman for South Ayrshire Council said: “These paintings are of national importance and there really is nothing else like them in the world.

“They bring to life this famous poem in vibrant colour and often comic detail and I would encourage anyone who has not seen them to go along.

“Nobody knows when the full years ago, is widely hailed as the Scottish bard’s finest work.

It is was compared by Sir Walter Scott to Shakespeare’s best work and is acclaimed around the world at Burns’ Suppers.

The 54 paintings by Goudie, who died in 2004, aged 70, represent each stanza in the poem as Tam makes his wild, drunken ride across the Brig O’Doon, to escape pursuing witches.

The exhibition fills the Maclaurin Gallery and much of Rozelle House as well.

South Ayrshire Council said it was: “a mammoth undertaking and a truly historic event not to be missed”.

Lachlan Goudie, the artist’s son son, says: “My dad was obsessed with Tam o’ Shanter and he spent decades of his life creating these images.

“Since childhood he’d known about Robert Burns and it had been his lifelong ambition to create this complete cycle of images.”

The collection was almost broken up before being saved for the nation by a group of millionaires.