Alasdair Gray

If Sorcha Dallas, who was recently hitlisted in an international publication on 20 key female gallerists, had to pick a highlight of 2008 it would be working with one of Glasgow’s most iconic artists and writers, Alasdair Gray.

For a gallery that is but four years old, it is astonishing that she managed to acquire his archive. “I started to work with Alasdair over a year ago and my real impetus has been to make his work more widely known on an international level,” she says. “He has always been an icon for me, since I read Lanark many years ago, so to get the opportunity to represent his visual archive is nothing short of a privilege.”

At this year’s Glasgow International, Dallas exhibited Gray’s first solo show for the gallery. The other high points of the year involve artists Dallas has represented since she opened her gallery: Alex Frost being shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture prize and selected to represent Scotland at Venice Biennale 2009, and Craig Mulholland and Kate Davis’s shows.

“These are two exceptional artists that I have worked with from the beginning,” she says, “and to reach a point over four years on from when they first showed had a real sense of achievement.”

Next year Dallas will establish a Foundation for Gray and his visual archive. “There are plans afoot for a major retrospective on his work in 2010,” she says. “All the other artists on my books have various projects in development. The highlights s far are Henry Coombes’s new film, supported by Scottish Screen and his most ambitious film work to date, Alex Pollard and Clare Stephenson’s two-person show at the CCA in Glasgow, and Rob Churm’s solo show at GOMA.”