Jimmy Boyle (artist)

James "Jimmy" Boyle (born 17 May 1944) is a Scottish gangster and convicted murderer who became a sculptor and novelist after his release from prison.

In 1967, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of another gangland figure, William "Babs" Rooney, but released after 15 years. He has always denied killing Rooney but has acknowledged having been a violent and sometimes ruthless moneylender from the Gorbals, one of the roughest areas of Glasgow. During his incarceration in the special unit of Barlinnie Prison, he turned to art and wrote an autobiography, A Sense of Freedom (1977), which has since been filmed and starred David Hayman as Jimmy. Boyle always maintained his innocence.

Upon his release from prison he moved to Edinburgh to continue his artistic career. He designed the largest concrete sculpture in Europe called "Gulliver" for The Craigmillar Festival Society in 1976. The following year he co-wrote the play The Hardman with Tom McGrath, premiered at the Traverse Theatre.

In 1983, Boyle set up the Gateway Exchange with his wife, Sarah, and artist Evlynn Smith; a charitable organisation offering art therapy workshops to recovering drug addicts and ex-convicts. Though the project secured funding from private sources (including Sean Connery, Billy Connolly and John Paul Getty) it lasted only a few years.

Boyle has published Pain of Confinement: Prison Diaries (1984), and a novel, Hero of the Underworld (1999). The latter was adapted for a French film, La Rage et le Rêve des Condamnés (The Anger and Dreams of the Condemned), and won the best documentary prize at the Fifa Montreal awards in 2002. He also wrote a novel, A Stolen Smile, which is about the theft of the Mona Lisa and how it ends up hidden on a Scottish housing estate. It was rumoured that Disney bought the film rights but Boyle has denied that.

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