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Recent ACQUISITIONS
Scottish Art News highlights the latest acquisitions to enter other Scottish collections
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Edinburgh’s City Art Centre has acquired three digital prints by Rachel Maclean. ‘As an ex-Edinburgh College of Art graduate, we were keen to acquire something substantial for the City’s collection,’ says curator David Patterson, who first approached Maclean about an acquisition in 2019. ‘She had just opened her first exhibition in New York under the title Native Animals. The exhibition focused on the ongoing Brexit debate through a series of highly coloured, emotive images. At the time, none of the works had been sold to a public collection. It seemed the right moment, therefore, to consider a purchase.’ The three digital prints, ‘Green and Pleasant Land’, ‘Apparition’ and ‘Disunion’ (2019) were chosen in consultation with the artist. Two are currently exhibited in the City Art Centre’s exhibition Incoming: Recent Acquisitions at the City Art Centre, open until 28 May 2023.
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The Royal Scottish Academy’s diverse collecting policy is reflected in two recent acquisitions: Mungo Burton's 19th-century painting, ‘The
Children of the Late George Waddell Esq of Balquhatstone and a Favourite
Greyhound’ (c.1851) and a collection of Florentine drawings and paintings by 2018 Fleming-Wyfold Bursary winner Hannah Mooney. ‘Mungo Burton, an early Associate, was unrepresented in the collections, which led us to purchase this fine portrait group using our designated acquisition fund,’ explains curator Sandy Wood. ‘In addition to actively purchasing for our collections, the RSA also receives deposits from emerging artists through the various scholarship and awards we administer. The John Kinross Scholarship has sent nearly 500 emerging artists and architects to Florence since 1981, and on their return they deposit work into the RSA collections. In 2021, Hannah Mooney deposited a group of eight beautifully composed Florentine drawings and paintings.’
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Dundee Heritage Trust, which has responsibility for Discovery Point, home of RRS Discovery and Verdant Works, has purchased ‘Gaia’ by the environmental artist Luke Jerram. The seven-metre diameter globe installation is created from 120 dpi detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface. ‘We purchased the piece because of the respect and feel of awe for the planet which the viewer experiences when looking at ‘Gaia’ . . . [which] will give our visitors an understanding of the importance of the scientific work which the crew of the Discovery undertook, the way it links to present-day climate change research,’ says curator Mel Ruth Oakley. ‘Gaia’ will be the feature object at the Dome Gallery at Discovery Point, which opens this this year following a major £12m renovation project.
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The Burrell Collection has become the first public UK collection to acquire a work by sculptor Camille Claudel (1864–1943), the lover and close collaborator of Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), whose work is synonymous with the museum. The sculpture, ‘L’Implorante’, was created around the same time Claudel’s relationship with Rodin was coming to an end and he returned to his long-term partner, Rose Beuret. It shows a naked, young woman kneeling on rocky ground. The work will be shown in the inaugural exhibition of the museum’s newly designed Special Exhibition and Event space, opening late summer 2022. (Read more about the work on page 42).
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has purchased Joan Eardley’s oil painting ‘Tenements in the Snow’ (1953) for Clydebank Museum and Art Gallery. ‘It is a pivotal acquisition providing a key narrative which enables us to tell our visitors a more coherent story of the artist`s background and development,’ explains curator Trish Robins. ‘The urban setting of “Tenements in the Snow” is familiar to West Dunbartonshire audiences, as are the narratives of urban change and regeneration that underpin Eardley’s street scenes.’
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Stirling University’s acquisition of three untitled works on paper by David Shrigley fulfils a long-held ambition for the institution. ‘David Shrigley is an artist that we have wanted to acquire works for the collection for many years,’ says curator Sarah Bromage. ‘We considered 2021 an appropriate moment to acquire works by a contemporary artist whose distinctive drawing style and satirical commentary on everyday situations and human interactions reflects contemporary experiences of the pandemic in a quickwitted way’. The works will be on display in 2022–23 as part of the University’s Space & Place exhibition programme.
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Rachel Maclean, Green and Pleasant Land, 2019
1b Rachel Maclean, Apparition, 2019
1c Rachel Maclean, Disunion, 2019. Images courtesy of City Art Centre. Purchased with support from the National Fund for Acquisitions
2a Mungo Burton ARSA (1799–1882), The Children of the Late George Waddell Esq of Balquhatstone and a Favourite Greyhound, c.1851. Purchased 2021 with a 100% grant from the National Fund for Acquisitions. Image courtesy of the RSA
2b Hannah Mooney, Image from Florentine. Deposited by the artist in 2021. Image courtesy of the RSA
3 Luke Jerram, Gaia, 2019 ©️ W5, Belfast. Image courtesy of Dundee Heritage Trust. Purchased with support from the National Fund for Acquisitions
4 Camille Claudel, L’Implorante,1898 (France) ©️ CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collections Purchased with support from the Burrell Trustees, National Fund for Acquisitions, Art Fund and Henry Moore Foundation
5 Joan Eardley, Tenements in the Snow, 1958 ©️ Estate of Joan Eardley. All Rights Reserved. DACS 2022. Purchased with support from the National Fund for Acquisitions
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David Shrigley, Untitled, 2019-20. Image courtesy of The University of Stirling. Purchased with support from the National Fund for Acquisitions
PRIVATE VIEW
As the Burrell Collection in Glasgow finally reopens after a major five-year revamp, senior trustee Professor Frances Fowle shines a light on a new acquisition by Camille Claudel, whose genius has often been overshadowed by that of her famous teacher and lover, Auguste Rodin
Camille Claudel, L’Implorante (1898) ©️ CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collections. Purchased with the aid of Sir William Burrell’s Trust, the National Fund for Acquisitions, the Art Fund and the Henry Moore Foundation Among the Burrell Trustees’ most enjoyable tasks is to buy new works for the collection. It is important for any new acquisition to reflect shipping tycoon Sir William Burrell’s own tastes, but also to be relevant to today’s audiences. The Burrell boasts an outstanding collection of 14 sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), representing all aspects of his genius – from the poignant and symbolic realism of ‘She Who Was the Helmet Maker’s Once-Beautiful Wife’ (1885–7) to the sentimental tenderness of ‘Brother and Sister’ (1890). Such tenderness is rare in Rodin’s work, and he owed more than he acknowledged to his brilliantly talented student and lover Camille Claudel (1864–1943). It is therefore supremely fitting that among the Trustees’ most recent purchases is Claudel’s profoundly moving ‘L’Implorante (The Implorer)’. Claudel entered Rodin’s studio at the age of 17 and soon became his model, confidante and mistress. ‘L’Implorante’ was begun the year their love affair ended; it expresses in the simplest terms Camille’s intense grief and sense of abandonment, as well as the unbearable tensions that existed in their relationship. The kneeling figure was first modelled as part of a larger group, ‘L’Age Mûr (Maturity)’, which features a middle-aged man being led away by an older woman, generally acknowledged to represent Rose Beuret, Rodin’s lifelong companion and eventual wife. I first discovered Claudel’s genius while studying in Paris in the late 1970s. The subject of my undergraduate dissertation was Rodin’s ‘Gates of Hell’, necessitating numerous visits to the Hôtel Biron in the Rue de Varenne. Although my focus was Rodin, I was enthralled by the few works by Claudel that I encountered there and intrigued by her ability to work imaginatively with different materials – mixing onyx and bronze, for example, in works such as ‘The Wave’. Above all, I realised that the intensity of her passion in her crouching and soaring figures stemmed from her own creative imagination and connection with the clay. Her most brilliant work is acknowledged to be ‘The Waltz’, a passionate and sensuous creation showing two dancing lovers locked in a tight embrace. By contrast, ‘L’Implorante’ represents the abandoned lover; it is not only a reflection of her own tragic story, but also symbolises an aspect of the human condition which has universal resonance. The critic Octave Mirbeau described Claudel as ‘a revolt against nature: a woman genius’. As a woman sculptor trying to forge a career in late 19th-century Paris, she lived constantly under the shadow of her master. In later life, she suffered from mental illness (diagnosed as schizophrenia), accusing Rodin of stealing her ideas and even plotting to murder her. She spent the last 30 years of her life in an asylum at Montfavet. Her career ended in obscurity, but in recent years her genius as a sculptor has been properly recognised. Her work is now represented in collections worldwide and in 2017 the Camille Claudel Museum opened at Nogent-surSeine. Nevertheless, ‘L’Implorante’ is the first work by Claudel to be bought by a UK museum; hopefully it will be the first of many.
Frances Fowle is senior trustee of the Burrell Collection, Professor of Nineteenth-Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and senior curator of French Art at the National Galleries of Scotland
The Burrell Collection
Pollok Country Park, 2060 Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow, G43 1AT T: (0)141 287 2550 | burrellcollection.com Open: Monday to Thursday and Saturday 10am–5pm, Friday and Sunday 11am–5pm
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As the art market emerges from the pandemic, galleries and auction houses continue to adapt to the challenges of a post-lockdown world
Of all the lessons we learned in the pandemic, one of the more surprising ones is this: global lockdowns are good for the art market. A cluster of factors – people spending more time at home and considering improvements, disposable cash which might have been spent on travel – led to a ‘mini boom’ in the buying of art and antiques. Lockdown meant everyone had plenty of time to absorb online content from galleries and get to grips with bidding in internet auctions. Galleries, dealers and auction houses all reported record results during the pandemic, the best of them during the periods of full lockdown. However, more than two years since the first lockdown began, the situation has changed. While some of the new habits acquired during the pandemic are here to stay, others are being sloughed off as ‘real life’ returns. Meantime, the post-pandemic world is presenting different challenges. Edinburgh-based auction house Lyon & Turnbull was a pioneer of online sales in April 2020. The company has reported record results for the last two years, 2021 being their strongest year to date with sales of £26 million (88 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels) and a 15 per cent rise in new buyers. Online sales have brought a resurgence of international buyers, particularly from North America.
That momentum has brought a strong start to 2022, and managing director Gavin Strang is ebullient: ‘Things may be settling down a little bit, but we’re still seeing very strong results. Good quality examples of almost everything are seeing a lot of interest. Things which aren’t the best examples are a little sluggish, but the market remains very robust, particularly for the best items.’ The Scottish Colourists take some of the highest prices in Scottish art, and Lyon & Turnbull’s flagship Scottish Paintings and Sculpture sale in December saw Samuel Peploe’s ‘Roses and Fruit’ sell for £735,000. The six Peploes in the sale fetched a total of £1.17 million and there were also high prices for Francis Cadell, Anne Redpath and Joan Eardley. Strang’s analysis of the market was borne out by the Modern British and Irish Art sales at Christies in March. In the evening sale, Peploe’s ‘White Roses’ sold for £441,000, while Cadell’s ‘Still Life with Tulips’ sent prices soaring up to £724,000. Meanwhile, ‘The Croquet Party’ by ‘Glasgow Boy’ John Lavery pushed expectations upwards, selling for £2.9million. The day sale saw paintings by Alan Davie, Craigie Aitchison, Anne Redpath and Elizabeth Blackadder firmly exceeding estimates, while less distinguished works by Eduardo Paolozzi and a more traditional early Peploe were disappointing. Strang says that, while traditional art had something of a resurgence in the darkest days of lockdown, the barometer of taste is now pointing firmly back to modern and contemporary art, including abstract art like the work of Edinburghbased Callum Innes, a painting by whom was a highlight of April’s contemporary sale. ‘There’s nothing nicer when you’re worried about where the world is going than a misty-looking Highland glen and some cows to calm the soul,’ says Strang. ‘But modern and contemporary art has been the zeitgeist for some time and remains so, from the Colourists to Howson, Bellany and beyond. Prints and multiples is a growing market and a great way for younger audiences to engage.’
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While many of the developments of lockdown are here to stay (weekly emails, 3D Matterport technology for online viewings, increased social media presence), galleries now face the challenge of doing these things in addition to everything they did before. Emily Walsh, managing director of Edinburgh and London-based gallery The Fine Art Society, says: ‘For the first time in two years, it feels like we are able to plan. We are now offering a full programme of events again and there is a real appetite for them. People are pleased to be out amongst other people and it’s so nice to walk into a gallery without an appointment. We want to remind people they can come in. As good as digital is, coming to look at pictures in the flesh is what it’s really about.’
Perhaps what has changed most is the nature of the auctions themselves. ‘People come to view things, but often don’t stay for the sale. If they trust the technology, it’s easier to dial in via their mobile phone or their computer screen. As auctioneers, we’ve had to re-learn our craft and play to people who we can’t see.’ Meanwhile, in the gallery sector, dealers are pleased to be welcoming people back through the doors. For many, 2021 was a repeat of 2020: very successful online sales during lockdown, followed by a brief euphoric return to gallery visits in the summer, tailing off in the autumn with rumours of new Covid variants. ‘While traditional art had something of a resurgence in the darkest days of lockdown, the barometer of taste is now pointing firmly back to modern and contemporary art’
A few doors further down Dundas Street at The Scottish Gallery, managing director Christina Jansen has also had two good years. A particular highlight was the Joan Eardley Centenary exhibition in August 2021 which not only had a significant digital presence, it had visitors queueing up the street for socially distanced viewings, and resulted in a significant increase in Eardley prices for the gallery. As Covid recedes, Jansen sees other challenges on the horizon: the ongoing impact of Brexit, the war in Ukraine, fuel bills sky-rocketing and the long-term economic effects of the pandemic. These not only bring pressures on the gallery as a business – she says their fuel bills could treble – but are also likely to affect the art-buying public. ‘This is likely to be a tough year for everyone, with inflation, mortgage costs and fuel bills increasing. Maybe these are reasons not to invest in art. Covid is still with us, but, as a health crisis, it is not the number one priority any more; it’s more about the consequences globally and the impacts locally. ‘We knew it was going to be difficult coming out of Brexit and the pandemic has to be paid for. Now we are in a different phase. We need to play to our strengths and make sure we are looking after our artists. We’re in a strong position but we are prepared for what might be a bumpy ride.’
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1 Samuel John Peploe RSA, Roses and Fruit c.1920. Image courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull
2 John Lavery, The Croquet Party, 1890-93. Photo ©️ Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images
3 Callum Innes. Payne Grey-Cobalt, 1995. Image ©️ the artist
4 John Byrne, Ceci n'est pas un autoportrait, 2003. Image ©️ the artist. Image courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull
5 Queue outside of the Scottish Gallery. Image courtesy of The Fine Art Society
REVIEWS Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life
Patricia Allmer
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Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two), Edinburgh Until 2 October
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is currently staging the first major retrospective in Scotland of Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975), one of the most important artists of the 20th century. The exhibition, comprising over 120 works, takes viewers on an extraordinary journey which repeatedly demonstrates how inextricably interwoven are Hepworth’s art and life (the title of both the show and the accompanying substantial and beautifully illustrated publication from Thames & Hudson, by its curator Eleanor Clayton from the Hepworth Wakefield. As Clayton explains, Hepworth has been most widely known as an abstract sculptor, with people often regarding her work as ‘detached from the world’. In her lifetime, she was criticised for being ‘cool and restrained’. The exhibition pulls at the seams of this conception of her work, unravelling an oeuvre saturated in human experience. Her art ranged widely across drawing, painting and sculpture, lithography, textile and stage design. She worked with a wealth of materials including an extraordinary diversity of woods, stones and metals. The organisation of the exhibition demonstrates the tightness of her body of work; its multidirectional growth never loses focus, but sharpens over time. The first room introduces the insistent presence of three forms through sculptures made over four decades, which Hepworth called ‘the standing form (which is the translation of my feeling towards the human being standing in landscape); the two forms (which is the tender relationship of one living thing beside another); and the closed form, such as the oval, spherical or pierced form which translates for me the feeling of the embrace of living things, either in nature or in the human spirit.’ From this room, visitors are led chronologically through these conceptions in different contexts – from their beginnings in early drawings and life classes, to displays of her larger sculptures, echoing pre-historic and totemic monuments. Space is dedicated to exploring Hepworth’s concern with the intimate bonds between mother and child (she gave birth to triplets in 1934), exploring works associated with pregnancy and motherhood – the swellings of a pregnant body, the soft, vulnerable contours of a child’s head. Another room shows abstract drawings made in 1939 at Carbis Bay, near St Ives, created against the background pressures of war, child-rearing and a scarcity of sculptural material. On the opposite wall, we see figurative ‘hospital drawings’ from 1948, whose genesis lay in the surgery one of Hepworth’s daughters underwent, showing medical teams preparing and performing operations, with a particular emphasis on the role of hands, their skilfulness and touch. These drawings surround abstract sculptures made during and immediately after the war years, such as ‘Wave’ (1943-4), a masterpiece from the Scottish National Galleries’ collection which will only be on show in Edinburgh due to its fragility. The
