CRIPPLED by the pandemic, Glasgow’s renowned arts scene has reached crisis point. As The Herald campaigns for a Fair Deal for Glasgow, we meet the people whose lives have been changed by the city’s museums, galleries and theatres.
When Arvind Salwan was a child, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum became his playground. Skipping through the doors, he would make a beeline for his favourites: the battle-worn Ghost Dance Shirt and a Vincent van Gogh portrait of art dealer Alexander Reid that he dubbed “the tiger man”.
Growing up in Glasgow during the early 1970s, the eldest son of immigrants from India, Salwan credits these regular visits with firing his imagination and forging a life-long appreciation of art – something he believes would never have happened if he had been raised anywhere else.
Each Sunday, when his parents had their one afternoon off – Salwan’s father was a bus driver and inspector, then later ran a restaurant, while his mother worked in a tea factory – the family would head to Kelvingrove to spend many happy hours browsing the…
