If he had been a man for interviews, Peter Shaw would have been celebrated 30 years ago as a classic working-class hero.
asserted
Shaw → celebrate → hero
Instead, this Lanarkshire miner’s son – one of nine children growing up in a spartan cottage with rotting floorboards – slipped out of the spotlight.
asserted
son → grow → spotlight
He had become a high-flier in public transport and, by 1996, was at the helm of Strathclyde Buses as bidders competed to add the employee-owned company to their portfolios.
asserted
bidders → become → portfolios
Over months of negotiations with several interested parties, Mr Shaw played the firm’s hand masterfully, securing a deal which made its 3,500 workers tens of thousands of pounds better off at the stroke of a pen.
asserted
workers → play → pen
He didn’t do badly for himself either.
asserted
He → do → himself
Several million came his way following the sale of the outfit to FirstBus.
asserted
million → come → FirstBus
Yes, had publicity interested him, Mr Shaw would have made quite a name for himself.
asserted
Shaw → interest → himself
The boy from the ‘Miners’ Rows’ in Bellshill was, at 42, wealthy enough to retire, and, into the bargain, had brought life-changing sums into thousands of struggling households.
asserted
boy → retire → households
But something about his modest upbringing stopped him from lapping up the plaudits.
asserted
something → stop → plaudits
He had just been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer and thought he was going to die.
asserted
he → diagnose → cancer
‘It wasn’t a matter of necessarily retiring,’ he says of the windfall that would have been worth £11.5million in today’s money.
asserted
that → retire → money
‘I was actually retiring to die, in effect, because the survival rate in those days was very low.’
asserted
rate → retire → days
Peter Shaw, the son of a Lanarkshire coal miner, has curated a hoard of some 12,000 artworks estimated to be worth £10million - and now wants to gift it to the nation
During his first meeting with a consultant Mr Shaw told him he had already picked out the hymns he wanted for his funeral and didn’t want to hear how long he had left.
asserted
he → curate → funeral
It turned out he had long enough to build the finest private collection of Scottish artworks anywhere in the world – to become the secret curator of a hoard of more than 12,000 treasures valued conservatively at £10million.
asserted
he → turn → 10million
It was a three-decade labour of love during which he amassed a dizzying array of canvases spanning multiple centuries and every artistic movement – The Glasgow Boys; The Scottish Colourists; The Celtic Revival; Scottish Realism.
asserted
he → amass → centuries
Everyone who is anyone in Scottish art is represented – from Allan Ramsay and Sir Henry Raeburn through George Leslie Hunter and sculptors such as Norman John Forrest right up to contemporary artists such as John Byrne and Peter Howson.
asserted
who → represent → Byrne
Now, at 72, Mr Shaw believes his exhaustive collection is as good as complete and ready for the next phase of the masterplan: gifting it to the nation.
asserted
collection → believe → nation
The artworks were never really his, he tells the Mail.
asserted
he → tell → Mail
Indeed, not a single one has ever hung on his own walls.
asserted
one → hang → walls
All he asks in return for the handover of the whole lot is a suitable public building to display them.
asserted
he → ask → them
It won’t be in ‘established cultural centres’ like Edinburgh or Glasgow but rather within the easy reach of working-class communities of the kind in which he grew up.
asserted
he → establish → which
It was, he says, always his intention to donate the fruits of his labours to the people of Scotland – but triggering that process requires a strategy which does not come naturally to a man as private as Mr Shaw.
asserted
which → say → Shaw
He must break cover.
asserted
He → break → cover
Though his name may be known to insiders in Scottish art circles, he admits he has lived as a virtual recluse for the last three decades, spending large sums of money on acquisitions for his collection but a bare minimum on himself.
uncertain
he → know → himself
He is camera shy – partly because he finds ego-trips distasteful and partly through a long-established preference for anonymity at auctions.
asserted
trips → find → auctions
Locked away at home, he now buys most of his art online – working 10-hour days, seven days a week, researching it, acquiring it, logging it and putting it in safe keeping for the nation.
asserted
he → lock → nation
‘I haven’t had a holiday literally since the buses,’ he tells the Mail.
asserted
he → have → Mail
The car before that was the one that I was given when I left the buses.
asserted
I → give → buses
I’ve got squirrels in the loft, my roof is knackered …
asserted
roof → get → loft
I am dressed like a tramp most days.
asserted
I → dress → tramp
He adds: ‘It’s enlightened me, given me joy in my life and taken me to a slightly higher plane which is what the best art does.’
asserted
art → add → what
It was in the early 1980s, while working for Strathclyde Passenger Transport in Glasgow city centre that Mr Shaw started visiting McTear’s auction house, which was just around the corner.
asserted
which → work → corner
‘Probably it was more the commerce than the art that interested me in the first place – the fact that people were buying and selling, but quickly it became a fascination about art and Scottish art in particular and I started buying.’
asserted
I → interest → art
His first acquisition came directly from the studio of Edinburgh-born artist Ernest Burnett Hood – and featured a table-top with a half-eaten pie and a half-drunk pint.
asserted
acquisition → come → pie
Forty-four years on, he still has it.
asserted
he → have → it
Other purchases followed as Mr Shaw became a regular with an increasingly discerning eye around the auction houses.
asserted
Shaw → follow → houses
The excitement, the fakes, the forgeries, the machinations people get up to around the sale rooms – the tricks they do.
asserted
they → get → rooms
One guy attending a saleroom and then bidding on the phone because he believes people follow him … all these things make it a rich tapestry.’
asserted
it → attend → him
By the mid-90s, the idea of becoming a serious, full-time art collector was starting to germinate.
asserted
idea → become → collector
Mr Shaw knew that, as the holder of tens of thousands of shares in Strathclyde Buses, his windfall in the event of a sale would be substantial.
asserted
windfall → know → sale
…and 80 more, not listed.
The Aporia
