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It's ironic that on the day Peter Howson unveils his newest and most challenging work to date, that the papers are full of images of his nude potrait of Madonna and her soon to be ex husband Guy Ritchie.

The celebrity strand of Howson's work - whether subjects or buyers - has always sat oddly with some of his more impassioned work.

These new images - inspired by the victims of the Irish famine - are much more in style and tone like his work from the Bosnian war, where he was official war artist in 1993.

Howson himself agrees. "There's at least one painting which is a Bosnian painting, I've just turned it into a famine painting, because war, famine, suffering, it's all the same," he says.

Although that period produced some of his strongest and most controversial work, it also took its toll on his health and the same seems to be true of his current project.

Advised by doctors to stop working all together - although he admits he's not been able to do that - he seemed weak and tired at the press preview for the exhibition. The subject matter is likely to be controversial but Howson says he hopes it will spark discussion and debate.

He says: "The whole point for me was to get across an anti sectarian message and get as many school children in as possible.

"Famine is not just about Irish Catholics, Protestants died too and famine still kills people today. If this makes them think, then that will be something.

"One of the most undignified ways to die is of starvation and people did literally due of starvation, there are people still dying of starvation today and that's what I want to draw attention to."

Howson's work is hugely popular - and despite the harrowing subject matter, these paintings are likely to be snapped up.

And that's good news for St Mary's Church in the Calton area of the city.

The church - and in particularly its extremely knowledgable parish priest Monsignor Peter Smith - assisted Peter Howson with his research when he first began work two years ago.

Its founding father was a priest - Fr Forbes - who spent three years fundraising in Ireland for the money to build the church. He raised £3,000 in 1842 - that's the equivalent of almost £6m by today's standards.

The Calton area was the focus for wave after wave of Irish immigrants. At one point the parish was the place of worship for 13,000 Catholics. These days, it's closer to 1,300 and that makes the job of raising money for restoration of the church even harder.

They've raised £900,000 so far, with some help from Historic Scotland who've noted its tourist potential but they need to raise the same again.

"Peter Howson came here and we talked about the famine and the impact it had on the people who came to this area, to start new lives and make new homes," says Monsignor Smith.

"He was interested in the work we've been carrying out and he promised he'd do what he could to help out."

Peter Howson kept his promise. Late last year, he donated two paintings of Brother Walfrid, who founded Celtic Football Club from the church hall, to a charity auction the church hosted.

This week he also confirmed he'd be giving a substantial percentage of the sale of all the artworks in the exhibition to st Mary's appeal. For Monsignor Smith, it's a generous gesture but also an apt one.

"What do you say when someone is that generous? Except thank you. It's going to make a huge difference to our appeal.

"It's a theme which touches at the heart of this parish. It goes to our origins as so many of the people in this parish came in the face of famine, looking for work, for food and a future for their children and they found it here."

Famine - New Works by Peter Howson is at St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art
29 May to 28 September
2 Castle Street
Glasgow, G4 0RH