Scottish artist Alexander Millar grew up in a small mining town on the west coast of Scotland, where life moved at a slower pace than in the towns nearby. “Although I grew up in the 60s era it felt more like the 40s,” notes Millar. “My formative years were spent in the company of old men dressed in dark suits smoking woodbines partnered with large missile-shaped women decked out in headscarves and pinnies.” With a father who worked for British Rail, Millar often found himself hanging around the rail stations, which are often the chosen settings for his paintings; they capture the nostalgia and romance of a time long gone.

Millar found his inspiration once he traded in his small hometown for the much larger Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England, where he encountered the local “Gadgies,” whom he began to depict in his paintings alongside images and objects remembered from childhood. Millar’s paintings capture precise moments that are lovingly created and all the more poignant because they depict the increasingly rare characters of Old Scotland. He has no formal training, but the self-taught Millar’s touching and playful paintings are an audience favorite. In a competition of ten thousand or so works entered in the Daily Mail’s “Not the Turner Prize,” Millar was chosen as a finalist and exhibited at London’s Mall Galleries.