Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of Art History at Oxford and world expert on the work of Leonardo da Vinci returned to Bearsden to give a lecture on his specialist subject. An audience of 150 listened spellbound as the erstwhile Western midfield dynamo provided an understanding of Leonardo’s art and science through the renowned Mona Lisa, and developed the theme in the context of the newly discovered painting, the Salvator Mundi. Martin also took time to introduce his latest book Christ to Coke: how image becomes icon, in which he investigates how 11 world famous iconic images continue to exercise universal and lasting appeal.
The event, organised by Friends of Western was a great success, and the Pitch Fund will benefit.
Martin was able to take in the 1st XI’s league match against Hillhead, and was duly impressed: “The brilliant white Western shirts were an apposite metaphor for the coruscating movement of their forwards in the watery autumnal sun, and their pervicacious defence yielded little to a Hillhead attack which was initially industrious but ultimately prosaic. Oh, and your number 11 is a bawheid, by the way”.
One of Martin’s few remaining ambitions is to be quoted in Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner.