Peter Howson’s Imposter

(Image © Peter Howson, courtesy Flowers Gallery)

Peter Howson has been described as a modern-day Hieronymus Bosch for his detailed and disquieting depictions of the Gospel Passion narratives, like this graphite drawing on gessoed wood of the mocking of Christ. The Scotland-based artist first attracted notice in the 1980s in a group of trend-bucking figurative artists called the New Glasgow Boys, who exposed the seamy underside of modern Britain in mural-sized canvases of football rowdies running wild in the streets and expressionistic portraits of people on the social margins.