In 1944, Glasgow received one of the greatest gifts ever made to any city in the world: a collection of over 6,000 artworks of many types spanning centuries and civilisations. The benefactors were Glasgow-born shipping magnate Sir William Burrell and Constance, Lady Burrell. Burrell's business success him to amass an extraordinary collection, which he housed in the family home at Hutton Castle in the Scottish borders. When he decided to leave the collection to the nation, he considered donating it to London-based galleries before deciding on Glasgow Corporation, together with the residue of his estate to provide a suitable building. It was many years before the right location was found, and The Burrell Collection finally opened in 1983. This new biography is based on recent research, full access to the Burrell archive and in-depth knowledge of the collection. Sir William was a complicated and private man who shunned publicity, adored his wife, but had a tumultuous relationship with his daughter. In politics Conservative, he campaigned for better housing conditions as long as this didn't cause further expense to the taxpayer. The authors take a candid and considered view of who William Burrell the man was, what sparked his passion for collecting, and what his gift continues to mean to the city.

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) was an artist of prodigious creativity. For sixty years, in his roles as painter, teacher, and polemicist, he was a source of inspiration and influence to successive generations of British painters. With his roots in the Victorian era, Sickert broke all taboos. He was uncompromisingly truthful, revealing beauty in the squalid as in the sublime: in cockney music halls, the crumbling streets of Dieppe, the grand sites of Venice, and the low-life of Camden Town. Decades before Warhol, he exploited the potential of photo-based imagery and of studio production lines to create iconic portraits of the grandees of theatrical, social, and political life. This catalogue is divided into two parts: essay chapters describe Sickert's chronology in terms of stylistic and technical development, and a fully illustrated catalogue presents more than 2800 drawings and paintings, many of which have never been published before.