The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation pursues a programme of cultural diplomacy furthering an understanding and appreciation of Scottish art and creativity outside Scotland through exhibitions , events , publishing and education. The Foundation also owns the finest collection of Scottish art outside institutions comprising over 600 works from the seventeenth century to the present day. The Foundation has established a ‘ museum without walls’ strategy using its collection to initiate exhibitions of Scottish art outside Scotland. It is a registered charity in England and Wales (No 1080197).
is summer’s reprise of the Fleming Collection s Scotish Women Artists show at the FE McWilliam Gallery and Studio in Banbridge County Down, highlights the speed of the rehabilitation of women in the story of art, compared to the glacial pace over previous centuries. Despite the achievements of feminist art historians Germaine Greer and Linda Nochlin back in the 1970s, it was the influential museum re -hangs at Tate in 2016 and New York s MOMA in 2019 which prioritised women that turned the tide in their favour Having said that, the Fleming Collection has had a commendable track record in acquiring women artists since its foundation in 1968, buying mid- century greats Joan Eardley and Anne Redpath in depth, as well as historical rarities such as Flora Macdonald Reid s 1883 Glasgow School masterpiece ‘Fieldworkers’, currently on loan in the new Scotish wing of the National Gallery of Scotland.
e Collection s already strong holding of women artists is the bedrock of our current exhibition. However, almost half of the 50 or so works have been acquired since 2017 as part of a dedicated strategy to enable us to curate as complete a story as possible e first known woman artist was the remarkable Renaissance painter illustrator and calligrapher Esther Inglis (c.1570–1624) whose work is currently celebrated in an exhibition at Edinburgh s National Library of Scotland (Renaissance: Scotland and Europe 1480–1630 until April 2025). However the
‘Rather than languishing in storerooms, which is the fate of so many museum collections, our continuing acquisitions are touring the UK and beyond like a troupe of Scottish artists –past and present – showcasing Scotland’s finest talent’
earliest professional artists of the modern age were Katherine Read (1723–1778) and Anne Forbes (1745–1834) (see feature page 21), both of whom are now represented in the Fleming Collection and play a starring role in the FE McWilliam show eir work is also on prominent display at Tate Britain s current exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920 until 13 October 2024.
Our acquisition strategy does not focus solely on women. Another recent addition is a landmark work by one of the leading ‘New’ Glasgow Boys and Girls, who sprang to international fame in the 1980s with their radical take on figurative painting. Adrian Wiszniewski s ‘1958–1989’ was exhibited at the breakthrough New Image Glasgow exhibition, at Glasgow’s ird Eye centre in 1985 which established the movement. e painting fills a major gap in the Collection s important holdings of his contemporaries such as Peter Howson, Stephen Conroy and Steven Campbell; to discover the meaning of its enigmatic title see page 7 In the same Lyon & Turnbull sale, we also purchased a beautiful sketch by John Byrne of Steven Campbell; a case of a previous alumni of Glasgow School of Art doffing his dandy artistry at the new tyros on the block.
Scotish Women Artists is just one of the shows touring under the umbrella of our ‘Museum without Walls strategy which was launched in 2017 with the Scotish Colourists exhibition at the Granary Gallery, Berwick-upon-Tweed. Since then, the Fleming Collection has curated 19 exhibitions, before and afer the Covid hiatus, which have atracted a remarkable total of over 190 000 visitors to view Scotish art at major regional museums and art galleries. is summer/
autumn, the programme continues apace with Anne Redpath and Her Circle at Inverness Art Gallery; Romance to Realities: e Northern Landscape and Shifing Identities at the Laing Art Gallery Newcastle upon Tyne; and is Fragile Earth: How Pioneer Scotish Artists Anticipated the Climate Crisis at Stirling University (see pages 4 & 5 for details of these exhibitions). e later, which was launched last year at Coventry Cathedral, will be displayed in the equally radical, early modernist Pathfoot Building offering visitors an unmissable double dose of visionary art and architecture.
All this activity, combined with our long-term loans programme to government institutions and corporate bodies, ensured that in 2023 over 50% of the Fleming Collection was on display. Rather than languishing in storerooms, which is the fate of so many museum collections, our continuing acquisitions are touring the UK and beyond like a troupe of Scotish artists – past and present – showcasing Scotland s finest talent.
A Museum Without Walls: The Fleming Collection’s 2024 exhibition programme
Anne Redpath and Her Circle
Inverness Museum and Art Galler y 27 July–21 September
Following a successful launch at the Granary Gallery in Berwick-upon-Tweed last year, the Fleming Collection’s Anne Redpath exhibition travels north to Inverness. Redpath is widely regarded as one of Scotland s finest 20th- century artists and this exhibition provides a remarkable insight into her practice, with works spanning 40 years; from an early portrait of Redpath s partner James Michie from 1920 to European landscapes painted during her travels in the 1960s. e show also includes works by the artist s son, David Michie and paintings by Redpath s acclaimed Edinburgh School peers: Elizabeth Blackadder, John Maxwell, William Gillies and Dorothy Johnstone
This Fragile Earth: How Pioneer Scottish Artists Anticipated the Climate Crisis Pathfoot Building, The University of Stirling 2 September 2024–18 August 2025
e Fleming Collection s groundbreaking environmentally focused exhibition, launched at Coventry Cathedral in 2023, travels to Stirling University this summer. e show brings together a group of veteran artists who were ahead of their time in responding to the threat of climate change ey are painters Frances Walker James Morrison and Glen Onwin; visual artist and constructivist Will MacLean; artist / filmmaker Elizabeth Ogilvie; and
expeditionary artist and photographer omas Joshua Cooper. Only when reviewing their distinctive individual careers does a common thread appear which is their shared response to the beauty and fragility of the planet, ofen expressed as early as the 1970s and 1980s. For some this response was triggered by finding artistic inspiration in the High Arctic; for others it was in response to the threats to Scotland s own ecology and the resulting destruction of traditional working communities.
eir work, ofen on a monumental scale provides both a precious record of icescapes now irretrievably lost, as well as symbolic and figurative expressions of anger at the urgency of their cause
Romance to Realities: The Northern Landscape and Shifting Identities Laing Art Galler y, Newcastle 5 October 2024–26 April 2025
For centuries, the landscapes of the North of England and Scotland have fascinated artists. e long cultural tradition of art in the North that we have inherited has formed our ideas of what we should look at and how we should look at it. As generations of artists have changed, so too has the nature of the North. is exhibition focuses on how the landscapes – urban, rural, land, sea and sky – of the region have changed over the centuries. ese are both natural and man-made: the rise and decline of industry; social upheavals; and the ever-shifing environment and climate Touching on more than 200 years of landscape art, from early works of romantic idealism to sometimes difficult realities, the unique and wonderful landscapes of the North allow us to see their changes as well as the changes within us as a society. is exhibition, organised in collaboration with Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery, furthers an understanding and awareness of Scotish art and creativity in conjunction with the Laing’s outstanding permanent collection of Northern English paintings. With highlights including works by John Martin, LS Lowry Alexander Nasmyth, Joan Eardley and a never-before -seen-incontext print by old master Pieter Brugel, this exhibition will re- contextualise the striking lands of the North.
‘This exhibition focuses on how the landscapes – urban, rural, land, sea and sky – of the region have changed over the centuries’
Opening of the Berthe Morisot House Bougival, France
September–December
e Maison Berthe Morisot project is a collaborative endeavour dedicated to preserving the life work and memory of impressionist painter Berthe Morisot (1841–1895), and to promoting the town of Bougival s rich cultural heritage
Situated on the banks of the Seine near Paris, Bougival is a place of natural beauty that became a magnet for many of the impressionist artists in Morisot’s circle who came there to paint en plein air e municipality of Bougival (the primary project- owner) acquired the
property in 2015, transforming it into a museum and cultural centre in order to protect its historical significance.
e inaugural exhibition, which opens in September is co- curated by Marianne Magnin, eodore Albano and Elizabeth Frost Pierson. e exhibition will highlight themes of children and nature featuring significant works from the Fleming Collection with a special focus on impressionist-inspired Scotish artists, such as Alexander Roche is collaboration aims to offer visitors a unique perspective on Morisot s influence and the broader impact of impressionism as a whole
We invite art enthusiasts and the community to join us in exploring
the legacy of Berthe Morisot and the interplay between French and Scotish artistic traditions. e exhibition promises to be an enriching experience that provides insight into the world of impressionism and its enduring influence on art and culture
Sponsored by the Fleming Collection, Longhouse and e Cornelius Arts Foundation
‘As soon as we saw Charlene’s work , we were struck by the unity and strength of her vision. Her subtle and quiet works stood out immediately and we were just so impressed with the thoughtfulness behind the pieces’
Landmark Adrian Wisznieswski work
enters the Fleming Collection
e Fleming Collection has recently acquired ‘1958–1989’, a landmark painting by Adrian Wisznieswski, a leading member of the group of cuting- edge figurative painters known as the New Glasgow Boys and Girls, which emerged in the early 1980s. e monumental work (2.1m x 2.5m) featured in the 1985 exhibition New Image Glasgow at the ird Eye Centre alongside work by Stephen Barclay Steven Campbell, Peter Howson and Mario Rossi. is show effectively launched the group, although
other artists such as Sam Ainsley and Stephen Conroy were also prominent figures in the movement.
e opening of the exhibition, which brought with it queues round the block, live music London critics and international buyers, summed up the ferment surrounding this new generation of Glasgow School of Art graduates. e Tate London and Museum of Modern Art in New York were both quick to snap up works. is painting which was acquired at auction at Lyon & Turnbull, had been in the collection of the renowned collector of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, Lord Grey Gowrie
Painted in 1985, its enigmatic title ‘1958–1989’ refers to Wisznieswski s meditation, inspired by walks in Glasgow’s famous Necropolis, on mortality and monuments. What would be the best age to be memorialised, he mused? e title reveals his preferred age to be 31 (in 1989), four years on from this youthful masterwork. Talking to Scotish Art News Wisznieswski says: ‘e work was an archaeological dig into
my subconscious. e ideas developed as I painted them. e female figure is a sort of muse and the obelisk in the background refers to the Necropolis.’ It also laid down a marker for his future career In 1989 he consciously branched out into new mediums such as neon to widen the scope of his creative ambitions. As such, this painting serves as a celebration of that glorious 1980s outburst of Glaswegian painting
James Knox, director of the Fleming Collection says: ‘is superb painting fills a key gap in our already strong holdings of the New Glasgow School artists, especially as it was a centrepiece of the exhibition that launched their careers and fame.’
Charlene Scot awarded e FlemingWyfold Ar t Foundation New Contemporaries Award
e Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation has a track record of supporting emerging artists through bursaries run in conjunction with the Royal Scotish Academy’s New Contemporaries exhibition for the best of Scotland s recent art school graduates.
Now in its 15th year the annual event offers a unique opportunity to see some of the most promising talent in Scotland in one single large -scale exhibition in the heart of Edinburgh. e 2024 exhibition showcased 104 graduates selected from the 2022 and 2023 degree shows, almost doubling the number of artists it did in 2023, and providing an excellent overview of the outlook of emerging Scotish art and architecture.
e £1500 Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation New Contemporaries Award is a prize awarded to a painter, draughtsperson or sculptor at the exhibition to support their continued practice. eo Albano associate director of the Fleming Collection said: As soon as we saw Charlene s work, we were struck by the unity and strength of her vision. Her subtle and quiet works stood out immediately and we were just
so impressed with the thoughtfulness behind the pieces.’
Born in Edinburgh, Charlene Scot studied at Edinburgh College of Art, where she received the James Cumming Award for Draughtsmanship for her final year work. Scot is also a recipient of the RSA John Kinross Scholarship a selected finalist for the VAS Graduate Award and winner of the 2023 Astaire Art Prize. She lives and works in East Lothian. Scot who didn’t go to art school until her late 40s, says:
‘I realised a dream of mine and never wanted to regret not having tried.’
She works primarily with material, research and the extraction of botanical pigments to create works on paper and cloth. ‘Coton paper is a textile in a way; I’m fascinated by the way that paper can become a textile and vice versa,’ says Scot. Additionally I was trained as a holistic therapist so was always interested in the healing properties as well as the intrinsic and aesthetic qualities of plants and botanicals.’
Also having trained in bookmaking she utilises many ancient techniques originally used by bookmakers for centuries. ‘I’m fascinated by the unique, non-homogenous colours
created by natural dyes; some of these plants you plant every year, and some take years to mature. One develops an interesting relationship with the plants through their transformation into colour.’
‘Looking for Piero is a series of work influenced by Scot s time spent in Italy on scholarship e work is a response to the stillness and harmony she felt upon coming face to face with the many frescoes she experienced there (distilled colour and structure being Scot s contemporary exploration of this experience of looking).
Scot s creative practice is concerned with parallels she finds between minimalism and the principles of ecology; intimate observation, distillation and atention to nuance
ese qualities are essential in her practice, where she works with botanical colour and repetition through line, folds and patern in order to explore quietude. Her works serve as a trace of her creative process which, at times, may evolve quietly through experimentation or otherwise distilled from a particular experience or sense of place charlenescot co uk
New display at Per th Ar t Gallery celebrates the life and par tnership of Scotish Colourist John Duncan Fergusson, and his wife, Margaret Morris, the pioneering dancer
Entitled Ferg & Meg: A Creative Partnership, Perth Art Gallery’s new permanent exhibit follows JD Fergusson (1874–1961) and Margaret Morris (1891–1980) from their early years through to Paris, London, the Scotish Highlands and Glasgow where they setled in 1939 Currently there are more than 40 paintings, drawings and watercolours on display as well as costumes, personal belongings, photographs and video footage Highlights include Fergusson s fauvistinspired Self Portrait: e Grey Hat’ (1909) and a full-length portrait, ‘Danu, Mother of the Gods (1952) showing Margaret Morris wearing a dress she had designed for one of her dance performances.
e collection of Fergusson s works and archive was given to Perth & Kinross Council by the JD Fergusson Art Foundation, established by Morris in 1963. In 2010, the Margaret Morris Collection was gifed by the International Association of Margaret Morris Movement. ese collections
Wilhelmina
Barns- Graham honoured with Fife plaque
A plaque to commemorate Scotish painter Wilhelmina BarnsGraham (1912–2004) has been unveiled in her birthplace of St Andrews.
e unveiling was timed to mark Barns -Graham s birth on 8 June as well as the 20th anniversary of her death in 2004, at the age of 91. It also coincided with the founding of the Wilhelmina Barns -Graham Trust as a charitable organisation.
are now looked afer by charitable trust Culture Perth and Kinross.
Originally they were housed in e Fergusson Gallery which opened in 1992 on the city’s Marshall Place e gallery closed in October 2022 in anticipation of a major £27m project which has seen the former city hall in King Edward Street transformed into Perth Museum, while the previous museum and art gallery on George Street is now Perth Art Gallery
Describing the new galleries, Perth Art Gallery’s collections officer Amy Fairley said: ‘With the opening of Perth Museum, we couldn t justify having three galleries. We looked into accessibility and the fact e Fergusson Gallery was a listed building meant that trying to install a lif would be incredibly expensive We wanted to have a space that was inclusive and allowed people to visit.’
In June this year Perth Museum announced it had welcomed over 83,000 visitors since opening to the public while Perth Art Gallery has seen a 31% increase in footfall compared to the same period the previous year. culturepk.org.uk/museum/perthart-gallery
e plaque is situated at St Andrews University’s McIntosh Hall on the town s Abbotsford Crescent. BarnsGraham was born in St Andrews in 1912 and afer studying at Edinburgh College of Art, she moved to Cornwall where she became a prominent member of the St Ives school, alongside Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo
From the 1960s, she kept studios in both St Andrews and St Ives, as well as travelling significantly in Europe, drawing inspiration and insight from the landscapes and seascapes she came across along the way
barns-grahamtrust.org.uk
Dundee Contemporary Ar ts shor tlisted for Ar t Fund s Museum of the Year 2024
Art Fund annually shortlists five outstanding UK museums recognising projects from autumn 2022 through to winter 2023 with audiences and communities at their heart. Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) is the only Scotish organisation to make the shortlist this year e other four museums are: Craven Museum (Skipton, North Yorkshire); Manchester Museum (Manchester); National Portrait Gallery (London); Young V&A: Victoria and Albert Museum (London). Last year, the winner
e Wyllieum, a new space dedicated
to the work and legacy of Scotish ar tist George Wyllie, opens in Greenock
Born in Glasgow George Wyllie (1921–2012) is one of Scotland s most beloved and well-known artists. Wyllie trained as an engineer with the Post Office before serving in the Royal Navy from 1942 to 1946. He was a Customs and Excise Officer for 30 years before becoming a full-time artist in his late fifies, pioneering socially engaged artwork.
e Wyllieum is close to both Wyllie s home in Gourock and his
place of work, the Customs House. e purpose -built gallery is housed in the new Ocean Terminal, a £20m flagship project on Greenock s waterfront development, designed by renowned Scotish architect, Richard Murphy OBE. Alongside a permanent collection display showing items from the George Wyllie Estate, the museum will also host a rolling display of exhibitions and displays of art which connect to Wyllie by outlook or ethos.
Read an interview with Wyllieum director Will Cooper online at flemingcollection.com
was e Burrell Collection in Glasgow.
Director of DCA, Beth Bate, says the team couldn t be more thrilled to be nominated for this prestigious award in what is DCAs 25th birthday year: ‘It s been a lovely thing to be able to share with our audiences and stakeholders, particularly afer a long winter of working on our multi-year funding application for Creative Scotland.
‘is is really a celebration, not just of what’s happened for us over the last year but over the last 25 years. DCA opened its doors in March 1999,and has really delivered on that early promise
and vision to bring the very best of contemporary art, printmaking cinema, and learning and engagement activities to all sorts of audiences from across Dundee Scotland and further afield.’
e winner of Art Fund’s Museum of the Year Award will be announced on 10 July
Read the full interview with Beth Bate about DCA’s nomination for Art Fund’s Museum of the Year 2024 online at flemingcollection.com 11
Kaur nominated for the Turner Prize Tate Britain s announcement in April that Jasleen Kaur (b.1986) has been shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize continues Scotland s relationship with the high-profile art award. Kaur appears on the list for the Turner’s 40th year for Alter Altar (2023), the Scotish-Indian artist s large -scale exhibition at Tramway Glasgow. Also on the shortlist are Pio Abad, Claudete Johnson and Delaine Le Bas. With a £25 000 prize at stake this year sees the Turner return to Tate Britain for the first time in six years. For Alter Altar Kaur was praised by the Turner judges for an exhibition that channelled her experience of growing up in Pollokshields, the multiracial area of Glasgow where Tramway is situated. e exhibition used sound, sculpture and pop cultural references across continents to look at colonialism and cultural identity in a deeply personal fashion. Components included family photographs, an Axminster carpet, Irn-Bru and kinetic handbells. At the exhibition s centre was a vintage Ford Escort car covered in a giant doily as it pumped out music by the likes of Bob Marley N-Trance Punjabi MC-remixed folk songs, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Writing about Alter Altar in ArtReview magazine Phoebe Cripps pointed out that ‘what holds this show together is a sense of the community as polyvocal. Kaur’s sculpture photography sound and writing are threaded throughout with the sense of a lineage – of families and peoples, tied together across continents. She selects everyday objects and materials as cultural witnesses to interwoven communities in Britain . . . ’
While Kaur and the other shortlisted artists won t be talking to the media until the autumn, Turner judge and director of the Cambridgeshirebased Wysing Arts Centre Rosie Cooper, was quoted in e National newspaper talking about Kaur’s work. Cooper described Kaur’s Ford Escort-based piece as a ‘representation of her dad s first car and his migrant desires as it ‘blasted snippets of uplifing pop songs referencing freedom and liberation throughout the space.’
e winner of the Turner Prize will be announced at Tate Britain on 3 December
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SC O T TISH W OMEN AR TIS T S: YEARS OF CHALLENGING PER CEPTIONS
JAMES KNO X
e Fleming Collection’s celebration of the women who have shaped and challenged the Scotish art scene has headed over the sea to Northern Ireland this summer. James Knox, the Collection s director, explores some highlights from the show and new acquisitions which are helping form a more complete picture of the significance of women artists on Scotland’s cultural history over the past 250 years
e third iteration of the Fleming Collection s hugely popular Scotish Women Artists touring exhibition is currently showing at the FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio in Banbridge County Down. Traditionally, the show has been curated around a series of themes (such as Artistic Communities, Expanding Horizons, Scotish Identities, Scotish Landscape and Interior Lives) rather than chronologically. It s a structure which reflects the paucity of professional Scotish women artists, a result of the crushing impact of patriarchal society until the turn of the 20th century It is perhaps salutary to note that the international best-seller Ernst Gombrich’s Story of Art (first published in 1950 and still in print), did not name a single woman artist.
However, in the FE McWilliam exhibition, it has been possible for the first time to display two rare and beautiful works by the first two professional Scotish women artists, Katherine Read (1723–1778) and Anne Forbes (1745–1843), which have recently been acquired by the Fleming Collection. e opening theme for this version of the exhibition – Making eir Own Way – is now able to start at the very beginning of the great flowering of Scotish female talent, before journeying right up to the present day (see page 21 for feature on Anne Forbes).
Jasleen
Katherine Read (1723–1778)
‘Portrait of Mother and Daughter’ (c.1765) Pastel on paper Fleming Collection
Read is deemed to be the first Scotish woman to receive formal artistic training
Born in Dundee to a wealthy Jacobite family she fled to France in the afermath of the Batle of Culloden in 1746. In Paris, Read studied under a number of French artists, notably the pastellist Quentin de la Tour (1704–1788), followed by a stint in Rome under the patronage of the collector -prelate Cardinal Albani.
Returning to London, the erstwhile Jacobite refugee was swif to receive the patronage of the Hanoverian Queen Charlote who commissioned portraits of her and her children, which remain in the Royal Collection. Read s London practice thrived: all the fine ladies’, a commentator wrote, ‘have made it as much the fashion to sit for Miss Read as to take the air in the park.’ Read exhibited at the Society of Artists and the Royal Academy and was unmarried, entrepreneurial and single -minded, ofen commanding higher prices than male peers such as omas Gainsborough. Read s popularity as a painter meant that her work was made widely available through mezzotint prints (also on show in the exhibition) which was beneficial to Read commercially as well as raising the profile of her usually aristocratic siters. Since the majority of her siters were women and children, the original portraits ofen remained with the commissioning families and were not acquired by public collections. is led to awareness of her work waning afer her death.
Phoebe Anna Traquair HRSA (1852–1936)
Study for ‘e Souls of the Blest (c.1890) Ink and watercolour on paper Fleming Collection
Commissioned to paint a landscape around Erchless Castle near Beauly Crowe one of Scotland s most respected and accomplished contemporary painters, made studies of the entrance lane which developed into this finished work of verdant lushness, marking a total contrast to her Borders paintings of snow- covered hills for which she had become celebrated in the 1970s.
Born and trained in Dublin, Traquair moved to Edinburgh in 1874 on her marriage to a Scotish academic and went on to become one of the country’s leading Arts and Crafs practitioners. She worked across numerous disciplines, including public murals, book illuminations and enamels. is preparatory sketch was for one of three panels of an embroidered draught screen, which presents a cohesive narrative titled ‘e Salvation of Mankind’. A group of angels wait to receive souls from Earth, once they have been tested by fire by the Angel of Death and Purification. e embroidery is in the City Art Centre, Edinburgh.
‘Portrait of Flossie Jolley’ (1923) Oil on canvas Fleming Collection
Margaret Morris, one of the most infuential and cuting edge choreographers of her generation, established her first dance school in 1910 in London. In 1913 she took a troupe to Paris where she met the Scotish Colourist, JD Fergusson. It was a coup de foudre and they became lifelong partners. Morris had always drawn and painted and Fergusson was an influence on her style Here she depicts one of her favourite dancers, Flossie Jolley. Her relationship with Fergusson was one of creative equals, he in turn designing sets and helping her run the dance company. At the outbreak of WWII, they moved to Glasgow where they were at the epicentre of Scotish cultural life Fergusson died in 1961, but Morris remained a creative force and, at the age of 81, trained the dancers of the experimental musical Hair when it opened in Glasgow in 1972.
Born in Ayrshire Parker studied at Glasgow School of Art where she met her future husband, William McCance e couple moved to London in the 1920s where she was influenced by the short-lived vorticist movement, which is apparent in this painting In this dynamic still life the cat has overturned a vase of lilies and a Venus statuete both contentious symbols of femininity. It paws at a pound note (suggestive of financial rampage) and has landed on the book, Love’s Creation by Marie Stopes, a novel that explores women ’ s choices and aspirations. e interior scene is placed
in contrast to the outside world, where a symbol of male machismo speeds away is rare painting is an allegory both of the status of women at that time and of the tensions within her marriage to William McCance who was obsessed with cats.
Margaret Mellis (1914–2009)
‘Passing in the Night (1994) Drifwood construction
Fleming Collection
When Mellis (who was born in China and trained at Edinburgh College of Art) and her artist husband Adrian Stokes moved to Cornwall in 1939, they provided the catalyst for the formation of the influential St Ives School. Mellis became
one of the earlist pioneers of abstraction in Britain and a key figure in British modernism. Her colourful assemblages were made from drifwood chosen by the artist for its shape, colour or texture. Some of these works are purely geometric abstractions, while others like this are more playfully representative Mellis went on to become an early mentor of Damien Hirst.
Victoria Crowe OBE RSA (b.1945) ‘Entrance to Erchless’ (1983) Oil on canvas
Fleming Collection
Beatrice Huntington (1889 –1988)
‘Nurse and Baby’ (c.1914) Oil on canvas Fleming Collection
Afer studying at art schools in Paris and Munich on the eve of WWI, Huntington split her time between Scotland and London, frequently exhibiting with the Society of Women Artists. is painting reveals her debt to impressionism and connects tonally to the swagger paintings of her near contemporary and friend, FCB Cadell, who went on to become one of the Scotish Colourists. Huntington painted into her old age and oversaw an artistic and musical salon in Edinburgh.
Sam Ainsley RSA (b.1950)
‘Reaping the Whirlwind (1987)
Acrylic oil pastel and ink on paper
Cartoon (1987)
Pencil and charcoal on paper
Fleming Collection
Born in North Shields and trained at Edinburgh College of Art, Ainsley became one of the most influential art teachers in Europe running the Environmental Art degree at Glasgow School of Art. She herself achieved international recognition as a cuting-
edge figurative painter through the 1987 exhibition e Vigorous Imagination. is is her design for the opening banner for the show which was hung across the classical portico of the Scotish National Gallery of Modern Art. For Ainsley, the colours red and ultramarine are opposites that vibrate against one another signifying opposing genders. Here a red warrior woman frees herself from the blue of the patriarchy who are ‘reaping the whirlwind of the feminist revolution, true to her ongoing engagement with socio-political concerns.
Ale x ander Na smy t h: A castle c onundrum
Joyce Cairns PPRSA (b.1947)
‘Eastern Approaches (c.1999)
Oil on canvas
Fleming Collection
Although born and educated in Scotland (she went to Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen), Cairns ofen-autobiographical work is strongly influenced by German expressionism. roughout her career she has painted Scotish communities and histories, intermingling biography with fantasy to reveal psychological truth. From the 1980s, Cairns began using her painting to investigate her father’s experience of war infusing her narratives with feelings of suspense. In ‘Eastern
Approaches’, a German naval officer in a WWII- era cap clashes with a civilian protagonist. In 2018, Cairns became the first woman to be elected President of the Royal Scotish Academy – 192 years afer it was founded – summing up the slow-burn of recognition that professional women artists have had to endure
Scotish Women Ar tists: 250 Years of Challenging Perceptions
Until 2 September
FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio
200 Newry Road, Banbridge BT32 3NB
T (0)28 4062 3322 | femcwilliam.com
Open: Monday to Saturday 10am–5pm
Long atributed as featuring Culzean Castle in Ayrshire, new evidence suggests a striking landscape by Alexander Nasmyth in the Fleming Collection may in fact portray a historic fortress from the opposite coast of Scotland
Further research may change and redefine one of the key works in the Fleming Collection, A Stormy Highland Scene (View of Culzean Castle Looking onto Arran)’ (c.1810), by famed Scotish landscape painter Alexander Nasmyth (1758–1840).
Despite being considered one of the earliest and finest painters of the Scotish landscape Nasmyth (himself a pupil of the great portraitist Allan Ramsay) had never received a compilation or catalogue raisonné of his works until JCB Cooksey’s crucial 1991 publication, Alexander Nasmyth, HRSA, 1758–1840: A Man of the Scotish Renaissance
In Cooksey’s book, the castle in A Stormy Highland Scene has long been identified as the grand bulwark of Culzean Castle, an imposing fortress -turned- estate which looms over
the Firth of Clyde in South Ayrshire In the painting the Isle of Arran has been brought closer to the forefront, providing a swooping vista of the mountains as a dramatic background.
Culzean Castle holds a fascinating history, including containing an apartment which was gifed for his lifetime to Dwight D Eisenhower Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe in WWII (and later US president), who referred to Culzean as his Scotish White House’.
Nasmyth was commissioned by the Kennedy family in 1815 to undertake a series of images of the castle and its surroundings afer a major renovation had been completed headed by architect Robert Adam, along with views of other family properties, amounting to some 15 paintings in total. Nasmyth thus came to know the area intimately. Nasmyth was also a keen architectural designer who fully understood how to depict buildings in a faithful and engaging manner.
e Fleming Collection painting is almost identical to another contemporary 1810 painted composition, also identified as Culzean Castle, held in a private collection, as well as an 1810
THE ODORE ALBANO
sketch held in the National Gallery of Scotland. It is with these three works that the conversation around the castle and its location, deepens.
e 1810 sketch provides the key to the atribution. In this drawing clearly done on location, the rounded barrel outline of Culzean Castle s keep can be seen: the landscape seting of the drawing was copied and used for the subsequent paintings. e two paintings from 1810, including A Stormy Highland Scene’, depict a much squarer building with a series of connecting galleried arches, completely lacking the distinctive rounded outline of the real building seen in the sketch.
Archie Kennedy Earl of Cassillis, and descendant of the Kennedy family who completely rebuilt the castle and commissioned Nasmyth s other works, says: ‘To me what really precludes the castle in the painting from being Culzean is that the perimeter wall is so tight to the castle and that there are no courtyards or gardens… By Nasmyth’s time the barmkin wall was already breached on the landward side by Sir Archibald Kennedy’s 17th century terraces.’
‘The 1810 sketch provides the key to the attribution. In this drawing, clearly done on location, the rounded barrel outline of Culzean Castle’s keep can be seen: the landscape setting of the drawing was copied and used for the subsequent paintings’
We know Nasmyth completed these two paintings, as well as the sketch, five years before he was commissioned by the Kennedy family to paint the building and surroundings. e question is, why did Nasmyth depict a completely different castle on the site of Culzean? Is it a real castle or merely an imagined, romantic view?
e argument could be made that the castle is simply a capriccio an Italian painting term usually used to describe an imaginary topographical scene sometimes drawn from actual sites and recombined in inventive relationships for decorative effect. It is known that Nasmyth indulged in capriccios, but when it came to real, actual sites, his architectural sensibilities usually won out and real buildings were almost always depicted.
Discussing the painting with Archie Cassillis, the works of some other contemporary artists emerged, including the prints of the 18th and early 19th- century naval officer and architectural enthusiast, John Clerk of Eldin. Clerk spent his later years traveling around Scotland creating scenes of famous castles and other points of geographical interest.
One of these etchings, of Ravenscraig Castle in Kirkcaldy bears a striking resemblance to the castle in Stormy Highland Scene.’ From here further investigation discovered that Nasmyth himself created at least one painting and several drawings of Ravenscraig in 1810–13. His 1813 drawing is even more similar to Stormy Highland Scene’, and convincing enough to possibly be the actual castle in the work. e partner painting to Stormy Highland Scene is even more convincing with the depiction of lower galleried arches nearly identical to the Ravenscraig sketch.
It can be proposed that these two c.1810 works have long been misatributed as Culzean Castle when in fact they depict a cross - coastally switched Ravenscraig Nasmyth combines the faithful landscape around Culzean Castle, while swapping the castles.
While seemingly a small detail, this switch speaks to Nasmyth s interest in depicting actual, real places even when he allowed for artistic license of location and environment. While he received commission for the real Culzean Castle years later he allowed his artistic sensibility to take over in the earlier works.
eodore Albano is associate director of the Fleming Collection ‘
Alexander Nasmyth’s A Stormy Highland Scene will be exhibited as part of:
Romance to Realities: e Nor thern Landscape and Shifing Identities
5 October 2024–26 April 2025
Laing Art Gallery
New Bridge Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8AG T (0)191 278 1611 | laingartgallery org uk Open Monday to Saturday 10am–4.30pm
ELIZABETH OGILVIE
Environmental artist Elizabeth Ogilvie fuses art, architecture and science using water as her main medium and research focus. Her work appears in the Fleming Collection’s group show is Fragile Earth, which tours to Stirling University this summer, bringing together six pioneer Scotish artists who anticipated the climate crisis
Elizabeth Ogilvie (b.1946) grew up in the Scotish Highlands, but she has earlier memories of playing in the waters of the River North Esk, close to where she was born in Angus. is helped influence her to develop a lifelong preoccupation with water as a material for her art, a constant in her work ever since Fascinated by the sea, she explores its mythology rhythms and the abstract forms and paterns it creates. Her studio is based by the coast in Fife where she can observe dolphins and whales as she works.
‘From childhood, what I have done is to go out in the wild and in the environment and just do nothing: look, observe,’ Ogilvie explains. ‘I used to play at the North Esk and really observe; just sit and look and watch it. e streams and rivers near me and then St Cyrus beach (which was quite deserted in those days) gave me a lot. I also remember in the summer holidays, I used to climb up trees and sit for hours, just watching and listening But I didn t know why. So I think it has all revealed itself now I can spend hours just looking before I find something special; or what I think is special, anyway.’
Ogilvie s mother had family ties to the now-deserted archipelago of St Kilda, which is home to nearly one million seabirds, including the UK s largest colony of Atlantic puffins. Another very strong draw to me is the north and isolation, so that s why I head up to Assynt or somewhere in the wilds,’ she says.
Ogilvie studied sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art from 1964 to 1969 with Eric Schilsky, who was then head of the department. A post- graduate year working on plaster reliefs followed, then she turned to making pencil drawings on paper a medium she has continued to use alongside video and installation, which now form a significant part of her work.
Using these media, she produces vast environments dedicated to water in various forms, regarding water as having a remarkably collaborative nature. Bringing water inside and isolating it from its natural habitat also introduces an artificial state which, in turn, may bring gallery- goers atention to the distance between their everyday life practices and elemental resources.
Her research also involves collaborating with scientists and engineers, giving her the possibility to expand and extend her knowledge of how technology can support interaction between artist and audience
In recent years, she has shown the work ‘Into the Oceanic in a number of locations including the Venice Biennale (2022); COP26, Glasgow (2021); and e Umbrella Arts Center Massachusets (2023), as well as part of the Fleming Collection group show is Fragile Earth, which launched at Coventry Cathedral last year
‘Into the Oceanic was made with fellow Scotish artist and filmmaker Robert Page (b.1976), highlighting the power of ocean habitats to sequester carbon. It is an immersive project involving two films: an artist s documentary, both lyrical and analytical in form; and creative film installations made for large -scale projection. Kelp forests, seagrass meadows and saltmarshes represent significant opportunities to offer a nature -based solution to mitigate and adapt to climate change while providing vital havens for marine life e 60-minute creative film features in the second presentation of is Fragile Earth at Stirling University this summer, along with printed production stills. Ogilvie and Page are now working on plans for ‘Into the Oceanic s’ third phase in the hope of taking the exhibition to Europe. e pair are collaborating with ‘wonderful scientists’, says Ogilvie who ‘appreciate and understand what this collaboration is worth. ey are seeking facts, and we are translating their research into our own language.’
She adds: ‘We re here to have a conversation with the environment and then pass that conversation on to our public So we re not entertaining the public we re here to have a conversation with them about the environment.’
Page also worked with Ogilvie on Out Of Ice Part One (2014–15), a collaboration to produce a multi-screen video and water installation, incorporating a series of video works based around ice melt and two large pools of water e work was inspired by and shot in Greenland. Following on from this, ‘Out Of Ice Part Two ‘(2016) saw them work together to take the
JEN MCL AREN
exhibition back to Greenland. Ogilvie explains: ‘My work with ice took me about eight years. I moved from the water cycle on to looking at ice and that was fantastic.’
It s also nearing 20 years since Ogilvie s exhibition Bodies of Water transformed the galleries of Dundee Contemporary Arts into dramatically lit pools, combining music architecture, video light and water, creating a wholly immersive experience centred on this precious natural resource
Since then, a new generation has grown up arguably more engaged with the environmental issues affecting the planet. ‘Because art is one of the building blocks of society and it s part of our collective psyche I think young people are more aware of that fact,’ she says. ‘It s important that the work, over the years, has remained in people s collective memory It s there in the background and it can grow on people; it s with them.’
Ogilvie s projects are a testament to her love of the natural world and the desire to pass on appreciation through her installations. She views art as an excellent way of communicating contemporary issues and addressing profound topics in the hope it might promote awareness and a greater consideration towards the environment.
Another work by Ogilvie that features in is Fragile Earth is an early pencil drawing demonstrating her obsession with water. Clear Waves Diary’ (1988) consists of six freestanding panels on a folding screen, inspired by a pilgrimage to St Kilda, where she discovered a deserted place still haunted by the memory of her ancestors.
is Fragile Ear th: How Pioneer Scotish Ar tists
Anticipated the Climate Crisis
2 September 2024–18 August 2025
University of Stirling
Pathfoot Building Stirling FK9 4LA
T (0)1786 473171 | stir.ac.uk/about/art- collection
Open: Monday to Friday 9am–5pm or by appointment
elizabethogilvie org
Anne Forbes
in Rome
Jen McLaren is an arts writer based in Dundee
DUNC AN MA CMILL AN
As Anne Forbes’ pastel portrait of the Duchess of Hamilton enters the Fleming Collection, Duncan Macmillan explores the 18th- century artist s time in Rome – where the work was created – and the influential mentorship of Scotish artists Gavin Hamilton and James Nevay
Elizabeth Gunning (1733–1790) was a glamorous Anglo-Irish actress with a taste for dukes. She became a duchess afer her swif and impulsive wedding to the sixth Duke of Hamilton, and following his death, she was briefly engaged to the Duke of Bridgewater. Afer that engagement was broken off, she went on to marry another duke to become Duchess of Argyll.
Gunning s glamour is recorded in one of Gavin Hamilton s (1733–1790) finest portraits, probably painted shortly afer her first marriage in 1752. Twenty years later Anne Forbes (1745–1834) made a very fine pastel copy recently acquired by the Fleming Collection, a half-length version of the Duchess’s portrait. A half-length work by Hamilton, presumably painted in preparation for his formal full-length, gives a much more vivid sense of the Duchess s vivacity and charm.
is half-length was evidently still in Hamilton s possession when Anne Forbes made her copy two decades later She and her mother had travelled to Rome in 1768 and stayed until 1771. e purpose of their sojourn was for Anne to pursue her studies under Hamilton, with tutelage supported by James Nevay (c.1730–1811). A fellow Scot, Nevay had himself been one of a number of younger artists whom Hamilton looked afer: ‘mentored might be the modern word.
A genial and likeable man, Hamilton kept an open studio where he appears to have been liberal with encouragement and advice to those who sought it. As this was Hamilton s own picture however it seems likely that Anne Forbes copied it in his studio and so it is perhaps witness to a closer relationship between teacher and pupil.
Anne Forbes was the granddaughter of portrait painter William Aikman. e Aikmans were a Lanarkshire family: Gavin Hamilton also came from Lanarkshire and the Aikman and Hamilton families were acquainted. On 29 August 1767, Anne s uncle John Aikman, wrote warmly of the painter whom he had known since childhood:
‘Mr Gavin Hamilton can be more useful to Annie with respect to cultivating her natural genius for painting than any man . . . All the young students apply to him for direction and instruction in their studies. I have known him well from his infancy He is a sweet blooded, polite gentleman and being now the most renowned of all the history painters of this age, is highly respected in Rome.’
Contrary to assumptions about the difficulties faced by a woman who chose art as her career in the 18th century, there does not seem to be any hint in the correspondence that Anne Forbes’ choice of career and her determination to enjoy time in Rome (essential for any aspiring artist) were exceptional. e only concessions to her gender seem to have been the company of her mother as chaperone and concern for her ability to stand the summer heat in the city
e artist s grandfather, William Aikman, was nephew to Sir John Clerk. Inheriting the baronetcy his son James later became patron of John and Alexander Runciman in Rome at the same time as Anne Forbes and her mother were there. Anne brought a leter from James Cumming to his friend Alexander and in March 1768 she and her mother were living at the same address in the Via Gregoriana as the Runciman brothers.
e Clerks, the Aikmans and the Forbes families were closely linked. Together they enthusiastically supported Anne s ambition and it was a family whip-round that funded her sojourn in Rome Effectively she and her mother were supported by a family-funded scholarship of £200 a year, though Mrs Forbes sometimes plaintive correspondence
indicates that life in Rome was nevertheless a struggle. The first year she reckoned cost them not £200 but £270 and in March 1768 she wrote:
‘I am forever calculating and grumbling that I cannot fall into any more reasonable way of doing it; but I find it to no purpose, for it’s true that when one lives in Rome one must do as they do there, and nasty clarty and awkward are all their ways, I do assure you.’
Hamilton, however, clearly took a close interest in his pupil and wrote to John Aikman in September 1768:
‘I can now with pleasure acquaint you that Miss has great talents as well as love for her profession, her industry is equal to her genius which qualities being so happily united success must follow. She has a strong memory which will be of good service to her in the practice of portraits. I propose that she should begin to paint in oil in the month of October and hope that in another year and half she will be able to make a considerable figure in her own country.’
siter misidentified as Elizabeth Hamilton, daughter of the sixth Duke and his wife the former Elizabeth Gunning Duncan Macmillan is Professor Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh and an art critic and historian
Anne Forbes portait of the Duchess of Hamilton will be exhibited as part of:
Scotish Women Ar tists: 250 Years of Challenging Perceptions Until 2 September
FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio
200 Newry Road, Banbridge County Down, BT32 3NB
T (0)28 4062 3322 | femcwilliam.com
Open: Monday to Saturday 10am–5pm
‘I can now with pleasure acquaint you that Miss has great talents as well as love for her profession, her industry is equal to her genius which qualities being so happily united success must follow’
Hamilton’s letter suggests the Forbes’ pastel of the Duchess of Hamilton is dated before October 1768 when he proposed she should move to oil paint. It was not all plain sailing for a woman artist however. On 13 September 1769, Mrs Forbes wrote to her son about rumours of an engagement between Anne and James Nevay:
‘These rumours, having got amongst the artists in the coffee house have given the gumples to Mr Nevay who never now comes near us but when he is sent for when formerly he used to come almost every day to see what she was doing.’
Anne made progress nonetheless and as well as her copy of the Duchess’ portrait, there is one other striking witness to her time in Rome. In 1772, John Raphael Smith published an engraving of a lively and romantic portrait of Signora Maria Giovanna Felice: it is inscribed A.Forbes pinxit in Roma Curiously given the subject of this feature, what appears to be the original painting by Forbes (facing the other way it is not a copy of the engraving) was sold by Christies in 2019 with the
3
An Irish Impressionist:
aver y On Location
Ofen simply associated with the Glasgow Boys, in reality Belfast-born Sir John Lavery had a globetroting career on the international art stage. As a major solo exhibition of his work opens in Edinburgh, Susan Mansfield talks to the show’s curators about the life of an artist who never rested on his laurels
One day in 1881, on the Pont des Arts in Paris, John Lavery (1856 –1941) met his artistic hero Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884). Quickly, the conversation turned to art, to sketching figures amid the hurly-burly of life Select a person, watch him, then put down as much as you can remember,’ the older painter advised. ‘At first you will remember very litle but continue and you will soon get complete action.’
It seems that Lavery took his advice to heart. rough his long and successful career, he retained a love for painting life in motion, something the photography of the time could not yet do A critic writing about his work in e Times in 1921, wrote: ‘ink of Sir John Lavery as a very clever human Kodak.’
An Irish Impressionist: Lavery on Location, which opens at the National Galleries of Scotland: National in Edinburgh on 20 July (a joint project with National Museums in Belfast and the National Gallery in Dublin), offers a rare chance to enjoy ‘snapshots from every period of his long career. Curated by Kenneth McConkey, an expert on Lavery and the author of 2021 book Towards the Sun: Artist Travellers at the Turn of the Twentieth Century the show looks at Lavery as traveller e theme shifs him away from the common perceptions of society portrait painter or associate of the Glasgow Boys and places him on an international stage Lavery was a man of drive and ambition. Orphaned at three he moved from Northern Ireland to Scotland at the age of 10 to live with a cousin in the Ayrshire town of Saltcoats. His teenage years were tough. In an interview given in the 1920s, he describes running away from home and sleeping rough on Glasgow Green, scaring away the pigeons so he could eat their crumbs.
While some suspect this story might have been embellished in the telling he had no family support for his career in art and, by the 1870s, was taking art classes at the Haldane Academy (later incorporated into Glasgow School of Art), paying his way by working as a photographer’s assistant. When his studio suffered a devastating fire, he used the insurance money to pay for further studies in London and Paris.
In the summer of 1883, at the artists colony at Grez-sur -Loing, he embraced enthusiastically the practice of painting en plein air capturing scenes, boat trips, casual conversations and other painters at work. Frances Fowle lead curator on the Edinburgh leg of the show says: ‘He painted what he saw. e whole idea of seting up your easel out of doors absolutely became his prime mode of operating.’ SUS AN MANSFIELD
‘Through his long and successful career, he retained a love for painting life in motion, something the photography of the time could not yet do. A critic writing about his work in The Times in 1921, wrote: ‘Think of Sir John Laver y as a ver y clever human Kodak’
He continued to capture outdoor life when he returned to Glasgow; such as lawn tennis, a sport gaining popularity towards the end of the 19th century ‘e Glasgow Boys began by painting rural subjects and he did a bit of that, but he combined it with painting more modern and contemporary subjects,’ says Fowle. ‘Lawn tennis was only invented in 1874 so it was a modern sport, and it was also an opportunity for men and women to socialise.’
As the city prepared to host the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1888, Lavery saw an opportunity to take his work to another level, seting himself up as the event s artistin-residence Some of the pictures he paints on the spot in the Glasgow International Exhibition are breathtaking,’ says Kenneth McConkey. ‘e whole idea is his and nobody else s; he seizes the opportunity to make something of that, and at the end of that year the city commissions him to paint the state visit of Queen Victoria.’
e epic painting celebrating the royal visit (now in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery) did everything Lavery hoped for providing him with an introduction to society patrons in both Glasgow and London. He built up a successful practice as a portrait painter in both cities, but he never stopped pushing his way forward.
He never rested on his laurels,’ McConkey says. ‘He couldn t afford to; he had no family money behind him. He had to make his reputation and remake it again and again, and you see that through the later part of his career He is always looking for the opportunity to catch the public eye painting a work which will bring him to the top of the list in an exhibition review.’
He also began to travel. In 1891, Lavery made his first trip to Tangier and quickly fell in love with the city. In 1906, he bought a house there overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar and
went on an expedition on horseback across the desert to Fez with adventurers Walter Harris and RB Cunninghame Graham. He went nowhere without his paints.
Afer he married his second wife Hazel, a glamorous American socialite the couple travelled widely: winters in Morocco summers on the French Riviera, visits to Venice and Seville, and the Alps for winter sports. In 1917 Lavery became an official war artist and, working mainly in Britain, painted some of the most experimental pictures of his career
In the 1920s the Laverys could ofen be found at fine hotels in Europe, or crossing the Atlantic by luxury liner. Fowle says: ‘Hazel was incredibly sociable she played tennis, she had lots of connections. She was a confidante of Winston Churchill and the writer Hilaire Belloc She was clearly a very influential figure.’
eir social circle features in Lavery’s paintings: Churchill trying his hand at a painting on the French Riviera; Hazel joining a table at the casino in Monte Carlo. But Lavery never stopped experimenting. In 1924, he defied medical advice and travelled to altitude to paint. His works include ‘Twilight, Lake Geneva’, a landscape of saturated blues and, unusually devoid of people recalling the work of the symbolists.
By this point, he was Sir John, and was well known. His work had been bought for the national collections in France Belgium, Italy and Germany as well as in the UK, and he was feted in America when he travelled there in the 1920s with the art dealer Joseph Duveen.
‘He was, to my way of thinking the best and the most interesting of the Glasgow School painters,’ argues McConkey ‘He was the only one who had a significant career afer 1900 and he remained an interesting and extremely varied artist.’
It is perhaps not surprising for an artist who loved to capture the moment, that in 1936, in his 80th year Lavery was at MGM Studios in Hollywood, hoping to paint Moira Shearer and Leslie Howard on the set of Romeo and Juliet However he found the studio a chaotic place in which to paint, and moved on to Palm Springs where he painted Hollywood’s finest at leisure including child star Shirley Temple. He died, aged 84, in January 1941, while planning his next season of painting
He was, says Fowle, a painter’s painter. ‘He s a wonderful artist, he has that panache that ease of execution; there s something quite sensual about his work. He was absolutely dedicated to trying to work out what he was looking at and get the right atmospheric effects, the right effects of light and colour.’
Susan Mansfield is an arts journalist based in Scotland
An Irish Impressionist: Lavery on Location
20 July– 27 October
National Galleries of Scotland: National (Royal Scotish Academy)
e Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
T: (0)131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Open: Daily 10am–5pm
‘The Glasgow Boys began by painting rural subjects and he did a bit of that , but he combined it with painting more modern and contemporar y subjects’
SUS AN MANSFIELD
LY S HANSEN: L IVE I T, PAINT IT
‘ We were told to look at the pretty things in life,’ says Hansen. ‘It’s a domestication, a domestic art about pretty flowers sitting on a nice table. There are no bombs going off. Before I even started painting, I knew there was something else. I think it’s called life’
Despite a career spanning seven decades, there’s a sense that Lys Hansen’s expressive and uncompromising body of work has still to gain the recognition it truly deserves. With a major retrospective showing in Falkirk, the artist talks to Susan Mansfield about the importance of self- education, balancing her career with family life and why she believes art is essentially a search for the truth
ere is plenty that s striking about Lys Hansen s (b.1936) paintings: their vigour and expressiveness, their rawness of emotion, the way they seem to fill Falkirk’s Park Gallery from floor to ceiling. Certainly, they tower over the elegant white -haired woman who has come to talk to me about them.
But Hansen, who is now 87, has as much presence as her work. She is as frankly personal, as uncompromisingly political as her paintings. Even as a student at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) in the 1950s, she knew she didn’t want to paint still lifes or landscapes.
‘We were told to look at the prety things in life,’ says Hansen. ‘It’s a domestication, a domestic art about prety flowers siting on a nice table ere are no bombs going off. Before I even started painting I knew there was something else. I think it’s called life.’
Hansen’s chief subject is the human figure usually nude. Her themes are motherhood, birth, death, sex, conflict, love pain. Part Danish, she works from an expressionist tradition more closely aligned to Germany and Scandinavia than the UK. Opening the exhibition Lys Hansen: Live It, Paint It which brings together works from the last five decades, Dr Geraldine Prince, a former governor of ECA, described her as ‘Scotland s most distinguished, most European living artist’.
Dr Marianne Greated, who curated the show, believes Hansen s work has not received the recognition it deserves, partly because of her gender ‘ere has been a lot of recognition for male figurative painters and Lys was making work at a similar time Her work is very upfront and direct and I think a woman making work like that, especially in past decades, wasn t really acceptable or palatable to many people.’
If war is a key subject for Hansen, it’s because it is part of her earliest memories. Born in Falkirk in 1936, she grew up in Alloa during WWII. Her father was away fighting; her mother ran the family bakery business. At night, German planes roared up the Forth, bound for Glasgow And so my night sky was searchlights and blackouts. How else does a child grow up?’ reflects Hansen.
‘I wasn t always drawing; because it was wartime there wasn’t anything to draw with. But I remember at school I used to stroke the teacher’s red ink when they had corrected my sums. ere must have been something deep inside me which wanted colour It s still the same,’ she laughs, ‘I like stroking colours.’
Studying painting at ECA under William Gillies and Robin Philipson, she had no female role models. ‘Joan Eardley and Anne Redpath were painting at that time but they were remote. I think that young women in the art school were just very prety to teach, and made nice wives, because that was what mostly happened at the end of college life.’ Afer she won a painting prize she overhead one male classmate say to another: ‘Fancy giving it to a woman!’
Afer her painting degree she studied Fine Art because, at that time no combined course existed. ‘It seemed only intelligent. You’re trying to learn your position in the scheme of things, so it s of paramount importance that you educate yourself And as a woman, particularly you have to go searching and finding what you need for your work. And that s exactly what I did.’
‘ When you’re a painter, you go deep. I saw there was a division in myself that seemed to be like a sort of civil war. And then I realised that it wasn’t just me personally, it was happening in Ireland with Irish killing Irish, and the British sending in the Army, the ongoing trauma and hate
This is important to paint’
And then she did marry, and she and her husband George Sutherland had two sons. While the expectation in the 1960s was that a woman would remain in the home Hansen was teaching organising local exhibitions, making her own work. ‘Because if you re an artist, if you re in love with art, you just can t stop doing it. You live it, you paint it: that’s how you are.’
As her sons grew, she started to find her creative voice. ‘I think things have to happen to you before you ve got something to say. You begin to get a sense of being a woman in the world and a mother and what that entails. Plus you have the experience of birthing and this child growing inside you, and you realise that your body’s not your own; it s an occupied space by the family and the husband. So all of that leads into what I was going to do.’
She felt acutely the tension between the demands of family life and the desire to make art. ‘e art thing surfaced defiantly and therefore I had to organise my life and my priorities and this I did. I was gifed with an enormous amount of energy I have to say that. I organised the food at weekends so that there were meals when I got home [from teaching], then I went off again to work at the studio till late Everything is a balancing act between the teaching your family your artwork, trying to do all this because the need is there.’
She was discovering she had plenty to say about the female body. ‘Kenneth Clark had brought out his famous book, e Nude: A Study in Ideal Form. I realised that my mother had had two caesarean sections and, although a beautiful woman, her body was no longer ideal. And she was one of six or seven sisters. ey were formidable these women. When the men were away at war, they had businesses, they had rolled- up money down their bras. So looking at paintings of naked women lying back on couches was not my experience of the women in my world.’
Gradually she realised that understanding her own internal conflicts was giving her a way of understanding the world. All this fed into her instinctive expressive painting ‘When you re a painter you go deep I saw there was a division in myself that seemed to be like a sort of civil war. And then I realised that it wasn t just me personally it was happening in Ireland with Irish killing Irish, and the British sending in the Army the ongoing trauma and hate. is is important to paint.’
She would go on to address the situation in Ireland in her work, as well as the Cold War. In 1985, she got a grant from the Scotish Arts Council to spend several months in Berlin, a divided city full of checkpoints where the past lay close to the surface. ‘It s a very naked city the history is very naked. I was having to go through all these checkpoints. I didn t know the language so my senses were honing in on the atmosphere All of this ties up with my own personal experiences, and then with my childhood and the war.’
Hansen continues: ‘I’m an artist who likes to go out there in the world and have a place Artists have a function. Although photography and film are very good, they don’t take the place of the painter with the brush and the personal interpretation of things.’
She continued to go to Berlin regularly through the next decade making paintings such as the ‘Berlin Trilogy (1985): Say Nothing Hear Everything See All’, and then later works like ‘e Visitation at the Blocks (which features the city’s iconic Holocaust Memorial) and ‘e Trial’, about the French village of Ascq, which was the site of a massacre by the Nazis in 1944. She has also made work about the Dunblane shootings and more recent conflicts in Europe and elsewhere. In the last few months, she has made drawings about Gaza.
Marianne Greated says: ‘For me, one of the most interesting things about Lys is that her painting is still very contemporary she s still making new work which is cuting edge. Her work is about human interaction, conflict, turmoil, things which are at the forefront of what we re dealing with now One of the things I wanted to do with this show is think about her as a contemporary painter.’
Art, says Lys, is ‘the consciousness of the nation’. ‘It s to be aware and to be conscious in the world and to say: look at this, this is what you re doing It s a search for the truth. And it may not look very prety at times. But that’s how it is. And that s what we do.’
Lys Hansen: Live It, Paint It Until 11 August Park Gallery
Callendar House Callendar Park,, Falkirk, FK1 1YR
T (0)1324 503 772 | falkirkleisureandculture org Open: Wednesday–Monday 10am–5pm.
Adam Bruce omson is the forgoten man of the Edinburgh School. But this summer a major retrospective in the city invites visitors to rediscover the work of this modest individual. Helen Scot, author of a new book to accompany the exhibition, takes a look back at omson’s life
HELEN SC O T T
e Edinburgh School is a nebulous concept at the best of times. It was never a formal group or organised movement, but rather a loose network of Edinburgh-based painters who shared common traits. ey all studied in the early decades of the 20th century at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA), where many of them later established careers as influential tutors.
Artistically they were linked by their preference for landscape and still life subjects and their expressive treatment of colour and line as well as their tendency to work in both oils and watercolours. William Gillies, Anne Redpath, John Maxwell, William MacTaggart and Robin Philipson are names that usually spring to mind. Yet there are others associated with the Edinburgh School who despite making significant contributions, have received noticeably less atention over the years: Adam Bruce omson (1885–1976) is one of those artists. Born in Edinburgh in 1885 omson undertook his artistic training in the city. He began by studying architecture at the Trustees’ School of Art on e Mound, but gradually shifed his focus towards fine art disciplines. In 1908 he transferred to the newly established Edinburgh College of Art, where he received diplomas in both Architecture and Drawing & Painting. Travelling scholarships subsequently funded sketching tours around England, France and Spain. Upon his return to Scotland in 1910 he became a tutor at ECA.
‘He was content for more ambitious contemporaries to take centre stage, which over time has had a marginalising effect on his legacy. As a result , his contribution to 20th-centur y Scottish art is largely unexplored’
omson remained on the college staff for another 40 years, instructing and inspiring successive cohorts of students, teaching a variety of subjects, from etching and elementary drawing to still life and colour theory William Crozier William Wilson, Wilhelmina Barns -Graham and Elizabeth Blackadder all benefited from his tuition. Although he had a reputation for exacting standards, he was ever -supportive of young talent. Staff and students alike knew him affectionately as ‘Adam B.’
In his own artistic practice, omson worked across a broad range of media, mastering printmaking techniques, drawing in pastels, and painting in oils and watercolours. His subject mater was similarly diverse spanning portraiture
still life architecture and landscape themes. Among his bestknown works are panoramic depictions of Edinburgh s Old Town and evocative scenes of the north-west Highlands, with its spectacular topography and changeable weather conditions. He was versatile and prolific, exhibiting widely and well-respected by his peers. For decades he served as a dedicated member of various artist-led organisations including the Royal Scotish Academy the Society of Scotish Artists and the Royal Scotish Society of Painters in Watercolour. Even afer his retirement from teaching in 1950 he continued to maintain an active role providing advocacy and advice in artistic circles. In 1963 he received an OBE for his service to the sector
During his lifetime omson was considered a key figure within the Edinburgh School. Today however, he is something of an art historical footnote. ere are many reasons for this, but his personality is a factor. Despite his considerable talents and achievements, omson was always a modest individual who was reluctant to promote himself over others. He was content for more ambitious contemporaries to take centre stage which over time has had a marginalising effect on his legacy. As a result, his contribution to 20th- century Scotish art is largely unexplored.
is summer a new exhibition at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh invites visitors to rediscover omson afresh. Adam Bruce omson: e Quiet Path is the first major showcase of the artist to take place in a public gallery presenting over 100 artworks from public and private collections, complemented by historic photographs and rare archival material. e exhibition charts omson s extensive career and stylistic development, from his early student compositions to the atmospheric landscapes of his maturity. More importantly it celebrates his vital role as a teacher friend and mentor to other artists.
Helen E Scot is the curator of Adam Bruce omson: e Quiet Path She has also writen a new book on Adam Bruce omson accompanying the exhibition, with a foreword by Sir Alexander McCall Smith CBE, published by Sansom & Company
Adam Bruce omson: e Quiet Path
Until 6 October City Art Centre
2 Market Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1DE T (0)131 529 3993 | edinburghmuseums.org uk Open: Daily 10am–5pm
In his intro, Moffat went on to highlight the success of this policy pointing out how ‘many of the “young unknowns” of a decade ago have become important, and in some cases, major talents’. e presence in the exhibition of the likes of John Bellany (1942–2013), Elizabeth Blackadder (1931–2021), Joan Eardley (1921–1963), Will Maclean (b 1941) and many others proved Moffat s point, as did his own success as an artist.
‘Edinburgh was a very conservative city,’ Moffat remembers. ‘When you look at the list of the artists who we actually discovered, they were very different from the mainstream of Scotish colourism and tackling very different things.’
For Will Maclean, who presented a solo exhibition of paintings at Rose Street in 1968, and another in tandem with Ian McLeod in 1972, e New 57 played an important part in his life as an artist. As a recent graduate from Aberdeen, unknown in the central belt, I was given my first opportunity to show my work when none of the established commercial galleries were interested. However, Richard Demarco did visit the exhibition and gave me an exhibition at his gallery in Melville Crescent.’
Maclean adds: ‘What was important for me also was the fact that e 57 was an artist-led gallery, so you were selected by your peers. I think Gordon Bryce was chair at that time And receiving first reviews from the leading art critics at the time was another important event.’
John Bellany was another significant contributor to the gallery ‘He had an exhibition at e 57 in 1971,’ Moffat remembers. ‘He probably didn t sell anything at all, but now these things are selling for hundreds of thousands of pounds.’ e 57 and New 57’s openness reached beyond Edinburgh, with artists from elsewhere showing work during the gallery’s annual group show One of these was Londonbased abstract painter Albert Irvin (1922–2015), who championed by artist and 57 commitee member Alexander McNeish (1932–2000) while both men were atending a seminar in Salzburg had his first- ever exhibition at e 57. ‘He never forgot that,’ says Moffat of Irvin.
ere were many other artists who came up through e 57 who were just as successful, but who today perhaps
T HE 5 7 AND NEW 5 7: F OR TY YEARS GONE
As Fruitmarket celebrates the 50th anniversary of its beginnings, Neil Cooper explores the crucial role artist-run gallery e New 57 played in the Edinburgh institution s formation and its impact on the city’s artistic history
It was autumn 1968 when a twentysomething Edinburgh College of Art graduate called Alexander Moffat (b.1943) received a telephone call from one of his former tutors. Moffat was told he had to go on to the commitee of what by now had become e New 57 Gallery. e artist-run Edinburgh space had been going for 11 years by this time having been set up by a group of artists wanting to present the sort work that wasn’t being shown in staid institutions adorned with landscape paintings. Founded by artists for artists’, and with architect Patrick Nutgens (1930–2004) as chair, e 57 was originally set up on a subscription-based model, taking up residence at 53 George Street in the second-floor studio of sculptor Daphne Dyce Sharp (1924–2010). Moffat had visited the gallery as a
schoolboy and been inspired by what he saw. e spirit of innovation continued afer the gallery moved to a shopfront space at 105 Rose Street in 1961, becoming e New 57 en route It was the Rose Street New 57 that Moffat stepped into in 1968, quickly becoming chair
‘I think I was seen as a safe pair of hands,’ says Moffat, who quickly revitalised the commitee ‘e first thing was to get a bunch of like -minded artists, good guys who could take on responsibilities for the running of the place. en we had to decide what sort of exhibitions to put on and gradually pulled a programme together.’
An annual craf-based Christmas exhibition was introduced, while bigger group shows were put together to run during Edinburgh’s August festival season in offsite locations that included the University of Edinburgh’s William Robertson Building on George Square. As Moffat wrote in his introduction to e New 57’s 15th anniversary that took place there in 1972, it was ‘the only gallery in Scotland which has consistently and defiantly exhibited young and mostly unknown artists’.
‘Founded ‘by artists for artists’, and with architect Patrick Nuttgens (1930–2004) as chair, The 57 was originally set up on a subscription-based model, taking up residence at 53 George Street in the second-floor studio of sculptor Daphne Dyce Sharp (1924–2010)’
‘I was on e New 57 commitee when it moved into the fruit market,’ recalls Onwin. ‘I don’t remember ever being invited to get involved. I think I was just taken along to a show ey were looking for people who were interested, basically. ere weren’t mass numbers of people coming out of art schools in the way there is now, and we d been doing a very academic course Even in our final year we had to do life drawing still life and life painting for our diplomas.
‘Parallel to that, we were doing work that had nothing to do with the college where you could do your own work and explore what you wanted to do. e 57 came out of that, I suppose It was already in Rose Street by the time I was first taken there and I suppose it became our place.’
remain lesser -sung John Kirkwood (b.1947), for instance had solo shows of his Dada-inspired industrial-based work at e New 57 in 1972 and 1976, before going on to greater successes. Moffat describes Kirkwood as ‘one of the forgoten men of Scotish art. Everyone should know about him’.
In 1974, e New 57 moved again, this time taking over the top floor of an abandoned fruit market at 29 Market Street. For the next decade e New 57 shared the top floor of the building with Edinburgh Printmakers, and a gallery run by Scotland s then arts funding body the Scotish Arts Council, at ground level. e SAC dubbed their space the Fruit Market.
e Fruit Market s first show – 11Da: Eleven Dutch Artists – opened in August 1974. Its first exhibition to feature Scotish artists came the following March with A Choice Selection a group show selected by painter Jack Knox (1936 –2015), and featuring Bellany Maclean, Kirkwood, John Byrne and others.
In his catalogue introduction to A Choice Selection SAC exhibitions officer Rob Breen wrote of the new space ‘that the gallery with e New 57 Gallery and the Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop upstairs, has been opened at all is a modest tribute to the energy of those artists, groups and individuals who have always believed the work of Scotish artists worthy of respect.’
is might have been a response to what Moffat remembers as ‘a lot of flak due to the absence of Scotish artists in the early days of the Fruit Market. e 57 responded by introducing an annual open exhibition, which worked wonders.’
Also appearing in A Choice Selection was work by Glen Onwin (b.1947). e Edinburgh-born painter sculptor and former professor at Edinburgh College of Art, showed his environmental-based works in several exhibitions at the Fruit Market, and in major shows across the UK.
Onwin highlights the significance as well, of women artists working within e 57; not just in the early shows by Blackadder Eardley and others, but in helping shape the programme. ‘Eileen Lawrence (b.1946) served on the commitee for many years, was in group shows, and had her first solo exhibition in e 57 in 1969 She was also instrumental at the end when the transition into the larger Fruit Market took place She also introduced that new generation of artists who emerged out of Glasgow School of Art to e 57, such as Steven Campbell who she selected for an exhibition. It wasn t just a bunch of lads. e 57 was more open than that for sure.’
By the early 1980s, the ambitions of e 57 saw them staging important Edinburgh Festival shows by the likes of German Neue Wilde artist JörgImmemdorf (1945–2007), and Romanian artist Avigdor Arikha (1929–2010). ere were retrospectives too of older Scotish artists, including David Evans (1942–2020) and Philip Reeves (1931–2017), the later of whom had in 1967 founded e New 57’s fellow Market Street tenants, Edinburgh Printmakers.
‘Many of those involved in e New 57 argued for a new kind of gallery for Edinburgh, based on the Whitechapel model,’ Moffat remembers. Afer consultations with the SAC, it was agreed to set up a new gallery A new company was formed and a new board put together including several members of e 57’s board.’
With Edinburgh Printmakers moving on, and e New 57 calling time on operations, the Market Street premises was now occupied in its entirety by the newly established Fruitmarket Gallery
‘In some ways it was quite a biter ending,’ Moffat reflects on e New 57’s demise. ‘Some people were quite violently opposed to e 57 used as a way of becoming the Fruitmarket. I was still on the commitee at that stage, and we were all geting a litle bit older and wanting to do something a litle bit different. Not everyone agreed, and of course the Collective came out of that,’ Moffat points out, highlighting what a group of New 57 dissenters did next.
As the Fruitmarket celebrates the 50th anniversary of its beginnings, it is essential e New 57’s crucial role in Edinburgh and Scotland s artistic history underground or otherwise isn t lost. Not only would the Fruitmarket and Collective galleries not exist without it, the roll call of major contemporary Scotish artists who e New 57 helped foster is also cause for celebration. Arguably even more significant is the gallery’s place as a vital umbilical link in the chain of artist-run spaces that followed.
As mainstream arts institutions fell prey to increasing bureaucracy and the irresistible rise of careerist-led curatorial culture on the one hand, on the other, e 57 and New 57 set the template for the likes of Transmission in Glasgow, e Embassy in Edinburgh, and Generator in Dundee All of these commiteerun spaces adopted what ECAs Chair of Contemporary Art Practice and eory Professor Neil Mulholland, referred to as a DIY doxa in his book, e Cultural Devolution: Art in Britain in the Late Twentieth Century (2016).
Despite e 57 and New 57’s significance compared to other Edinburgh artistic catalysts such as the Richard Demarco Gallery and the Traverse eatre its history remains largely under the radar Also for everything e 57 and New 57 opened up the gentrification of the art world that exists now beyond DIY spaces probably isn t something its commitee of old could have foreseen. ‘I think the model we set up still has potential,’ Moffat says, but I don’t see as much interconnection today. I think it s become much more career path-based. Everything s kind of professionalised now.’
Nevertheless, the waves of DIY artistic activity that have existed over recent years are a direct continuum of e 57. As Moffat puts it, ‘I think Edinburgh s a lot more interesting than it is given credit for.’
Neil Cooper is a writer and critic based in Edinburgh.
‘As mainstream arts institutions fell prey to increasing bureaucracy and the irresistible rise of careerist-led curatorial culture on the one hand, on the other, The 57 and New 57 set the template for the likes of Transmission in Glasgow, The Embassy in Edinburgh, and Generator in Dundee’
T here is no shortage of reasons why the past year has been a challenging one for the art world, as the cost- of-living crisis continues to bite and businesses face ever -increasing costs. Nonetheless, experts say, outstanding works are still finding homes and fetching high prices
e view from the rostrum at Lyon & Turnbull s Scotish Paintings & Sculpture sale in December 2023 was of a large and energised crowd. ‘It s wonderful to see that level of enthusiasm for Scotish art,’ says Alice Strang associate director of the Edinburgh-based auction house ‘e opening of the new suite of galleries at the National Gallery of Scotland has reignited people s appreciation.’
Strang says the market was very strong during lockdown, so there has been an element of sofening on lower -value works. ‘But when you have really significant works of great beauty and interesting provenance they are still performing really well.’ Many of the highest prices are continuing to be commanded by the Scotish Colourists, with FCB Cadell s Cassis, le Port selling for £287700 at Lyon & Turnbull s December 2023 sale and Peploe s distinctive Still Life with Fruit and Flowers for £425,201 at the auction house’s recent Scotish Painting & Sculpture sale in June
At Sotheby’s, another Peploe ‘Still Life with Ginger Jar’ sold for £444,500 and Cadell’s Still Life with Anemones’ fetched £444,500. A Cadell portrait,
‘Peggy in White’, sold for £254,000. In the Scotish Art sale at Bonhams in May this year Leslie Hunter’s Still Life with Roses in a Chinese Blue and White Jar’ sold for £95 650, well over its guide price of £40,000–£60 000 and Cadell s ‘Ben Cruachan Across the Sound of Mull also exceeded expectations, fetching £79,140
e last year has seen rising prices for John Maclauchlan Milne the Dundee -based painter sometimes described as the fifh Scotish Colourist’, suggesting that collectors are looking for more affordable ways to buy a colourist-style picture Milne painted in many of the same locations in France in a similar style. ‘Wine Boats, St Tropez’, sold for £93,950 at Lyon & Turnbull in December 2023, (guide price of £40,000–£60 000), the second highest price the artist has ever made Lyon & Turnbull’s June 2024 sale also saw Glasgow Boy E.A Hornel s painting ‘A Japanese Tea Garden exceed its guide price of £30,000-£50 000 to command six figures, selling for £100,201.
‘In general terms, the traditional market is sluggish,’ says Nick Curnow vice chairman of Lyon & Turnbull. Certain things in the 19th- century market
are selling for half what they were 15 years ago but there are also plenty of examples in the opposite direction.’ A pair of half-length portraits of George III and Queen Charlote by Allan Ramsay dated circa 1761, sold for £77700 at the December sale
Interest in women artists is continuing to grow according to Strang ‘Eardley and Redpath are starting to command prices on a par with their male contemporaries, which is overdue for the significance of their work.’ Joan Eardley’s small head study, ‘Portrait of Jimmie’, sold for £45,200 (Lyon & Turnbull), while a Caterline seascape Sun on the Sea’, fetched £51,200 at Bonhams in May Bessie MacNicol s sun-drenched portrait ‘e Lilac Sunbonnet sold for £55,200 at Lyon & Turnbull, which is among the highest prices for her work.
‘Leda’, a bronze sculpture by William Turnbull, sold at Christies in March for £226,800 And at Lyon & Turnbull, a portrait by William Strang Girl With Fan’, proved that an interesting piece can cause a stir even if the artist is not especially well known. e striking painting was one of the most hotly contested objects in the sale fetching £53,950 far beyond its £15,000–£20 000 guide price
Meanwhile the contemporary market is growing in strength. Scots-born painter Peter Doig continues to command sales in a class of his own, with ‘House of Pictures’ selling at Christies in October 2023 for £6.06 million. ‘Ward Round I’, a 2012 painting by Caroline Walker fetched £189 000 at the same sale. At Bonhams, an early figurative work by Alison Wat ‘e Cherubic One’, sold for £38,400, well exceeding its guide price
A record price was set for the work of Alasdair Gray at Lyon & Turnbull s January 2024 Contemporary Art, Prints and Multiples sale when the painting Glasgow’s Triumph of Death (Fall of
Star Wormwood)’ sold for £42,700 e painting which was first shown in 1957 in an Artists Against the Bomb exhibition in Glasgow, is considered to be one of Gray’s major works.
A pastel by Ken Currie ‘Man With Tatoos (1987), sold for £12,348, twice its lower estimate with its provenance playing a part: the picture was in e Vigorous Imagination exhibition in Edinburgh that same year which launched the careers of the New Glasgow Boys. ‘It does boil down to quality,’ Nick Curnow says. And the great advantage of being an auction house means that there is a deadline it forces people to make up their minds. e time imperative works in our favour.’
By contrast, some gallerists report that buyers are proving reluctant to commit to purchases, and closing a sale is just one of the challenges facing the sector along with rising costs and a volatile market. While galleries in Edinburgh are seeing no shortage of visitors, the business district of Glasgow is struggling with footfall still much lower than pre -pandemic ‘We ve been puting a brave face on it for two years,’ said one gallerist. Emily Walsh, managing director of the Fine Art Society says: ‘e last year has been tough with some months doing well, like August and September 2023, but the winter months were particularly hard going e middle market is sof, although the spring appears to bring with it green shoots. It s too early to say if this a trend that will continue Exceptional and rare pictures continue to find buyers, but they really do have to tick all the boxes.’
Important sales celebrated by the gallery in the past year include a very rare watercolour of the south of France by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and a group of six imagined portraits of the past kings of Scotland by the early 17th- century painter George Jamesone Several of the six sold to institutions.
Christina Jansen, managing director of the Scotish Gallery says the business is fighting to stay nimble in the face of rising costs. ‘Having a bricks and mortar business is very expensive we just have to be as careful as possible [with money] without compromising the production values for the artists.’
Jansen says that while the market is full of incredible highs and lows, it s not all doom and gloom. ‘But it has been challenging for four years for many different reasons, and we would like a stable period now! Brexit has been an intense source of irritation since January 2021. We ve had to say goodbye to some [European] artists because the barriers to trade are really quite extraordinary.”
Meanwhile Richard Ingleby of Ingleby Gallery reports a positive start to the year with two successful shows by Scotish artists. Brandon Logan, the youngest artist ever signed by the gallery and a past winner of the Fleming Collection’s Emerging Artist of the Year had a very successful debut show in which almost all the works sold. e gallery
described Logan s technique of painting on a fine grid of strings as a genuinely new way of making abstract art’. Ingleby adds: ‘We sold over 30 works, to collections both close to home and far afield. It was interesting to note that a significant number of artists bought his work.’
is was followed by a sell- out show by Caroline Walker (with prices ranging from £10 000– £200,000). Six works have been placed with museums, including two in Scotland, and two further works with public foundations in Asia and the Middle East. Another artist in the gallery’s stable Andrew Cranston, has recently entered several museum collections including the National Gallery of Scotland, Tate and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Meanwhile Scotland’s newest art gallery based in the stables at historic Colstoun House in East Lothian, opened its doors in May with an exhibition by young London-based painter Joe Grieve. e house has been hosting artist residencies since 2022, and McLean Sinclair -Parry nephew of the present laird of Colstoun, plans to stage up to six exhibitions a year with an emphasis on contemporary landscape painting
Sinclair-Parry is also building an art collection inspired, he says, by that of Robert and Nicky Wilson, the creators of Jupiter Artland.
‘Opening a new gallery involves a lot of unknowns,’ he admits. ‘Local demand is sofer than expected, but we ve seen strong international demand especially from North America for Grieve s work.
Collectors have been slower to commit to purchases instead choosing to reserve before commiting.’
Paintings of lost landscapes, distinctive portraiture and works that artists have proclaimed as their ‘best are among some of the stand- out acquisitions for Scotish art collections over the last year. Scottish Arh ewi shares some highlights
A significant acquisition for Scotish collections over the last year is by an unknown artist: e McManus’ purchase of ‘Dundee from the Harbour (c.1776) secures a rare visual record of the development of Dundee and its harbour for the city’s collection. ‘Early topographical views of Dundee are rare with only 8 known works – 4 oil paintings and 4 engravings – dated prior to 1820,’ explains curator Anna Robertson. ‘e painting shows many areas of Dundee that would be lost during a period in which trade was expanding and the town growing with the construction of new civic buildings. Castlehill was excavated and demolished by 1796. Atop Castlehill is the litleknown statue of Apollo recorded in 1766 but gone by 1800. e statue was known as the “deil drying his sark”. Was it a copy of the famous Roman Apollo Belvedere? If so it strengthens our knowledge of Dundee s enlightenment links with Europe.’
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Glasgow Life Museums have also added an image of a much-altered cityscape to their collection, with the acquisition of one of Alasdair Gray’s most famous works, ‘Cowcaddens Streetscape in the Fifies (1964). e work shows life in the Cowcaddens area of Glasgow where the landscape and community changed radically post-war. Writing about the painting in e Guardian in 2010 Gray described how all but a few distant buildings are demolished now. ey existed in 1964, and I have accurately shown how they were related . When looking from one side to the other you are seeing round 180 degrees, from Pinkston Power Station in the north to the tower of St Aloysius Church in the south.’ Gray referred to the work as ‘my best big oil painting and it joins the significant holdings of the artist s work in the Glasgow Life collection that were commissioned, acquired or gifed from the artist.
Many acquisition highlights of the last year are to be found in Scotish academic institutions, including Glasgow School of Ar t s (GSA) purchase of ‘Night and Day’ by the early 20thcentury artist (ofen referred to as a forgoten Glasgow Girl) Mary ‘May’ Reid. e oil painting was submited as the artist’s graduation piece and demonstrates the cuting- edge history of the art school and its pioneering female students. ‘[e work] evidences GSAs forward-thinking practice of allowing women access to life drawing classes, something that had been firmly established at the school by the turn of the century,’ explains curator Michelle Kaye ‘By 1919 study from nude models was commonplace but May was even more audacious in photographing the nude models in her studio to use in completing this graduation piece.’
Other major acquisitions for Glasgow’s academic institutions include ‘A Yellow Headdress’ a stand- out work by the Scotish portrait painter William Quiller Orchardson (1832–1910) purchased by e Hunterian ‘While the format and technique are similar to other works, the choice of the siter is unusual,’ says curator Lola SanchezJauregui. Although the subject could be framed within the “orientalist” art movement of the period, Orchardson rarely produced works connected to this theme and was rather more inclined to historic or domestic subjects and siters. In this sense the painting provides new insights into the artist’s production and prompts interesting questions about representations of non-western subjects amongst Scotish artists in these years.’ Another recent purchase is an innovative hybrid of portraiture and still life: the painting Capra’ (2021) by leading contemporary Scotish painter Alison Wat Wat’ s painting originates in the artist s fascination with the 18thcentury Scotish portrait painter Allan
5 Ramsay (1713– 84). Capra’ is an exquisitely rendered goat skull and is among Wat’ s recent works that are inspired by objects that appear in Ramsay’s paintings; signs or symbols of the siter’s life and character. e series was met with critical acclaim when it was first shown at the National Gallery of Scotland: Portrait exhibition A Portrait without Likeness in 2021–22 and the recent acquisition of another similar work from the series, ‘Bouc’ (2022) by e University of Stirling further demonstrates the widespread appeal and appreciation for Wat s Ramsay-inspired works.
Other acquisition highlights for e University of Stirling include two works by Christine Borland ‘Oval Interior’ (2008) and ‘Interior Dialogue (2023). ‘[e works] have particular resonance for the Art Collection here at Stirling as they explore the inspiration Christine derives from the work of artist Barbara Hepworth, whose sculpture “Archaean” was one of the first sculptures to be added to the University’s Art Collection in 1967,’ explains curator Sarah Bromage ‘ese works are in response to her long-held emotional and intellectual engagement with Barbara Hepworth s work and in particular “Oval Sculpture” (1943). e artworks recreate the Hepworth s hollowed- out interior as a solid form, revealing spaces “hidden” within the sculpture.’ Borland s works are now installed within Stirling s distinctive Pathfoot Building, alongside Hepworth s Archaean’ sculpture (see figure 5b).
e University of Edinburgh’s acquisition of three works by Hew Locke and six works by his father Donald Locke tell a story of the family’s journeys between Guyana and the UK, beginning in the 1950s. Donald Locke was a student at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and the University’s acquisitions (which span from 1959 up until 2007) reflect both his student work and later developments in his wide -ranging practice Hew Locke spent his formative years in Georgetown, Guyana, before returning to the UK to study at Falmouth School of Art (1988) and the Royal College of Art in London (1994), a city he has lived in ever since. e University has acquired three artworks by Hew Locke; ‘Churchill (New Look White)’ (2008), Sovereign 90’ (2016) and ‘Société de Navigation Transocéanique 1’ (2014). In each of these works the artist s ‘additions or edits point to the ways in which colonial legacies continue to haunt and shape our lives in the present. e University has also significantly expanded their holdings of social documentary photography acquiring photographs of 1980s Edinburgh by ECA alumnus Graham Macindoe the photographic archive of Tom Kidd as well as the collections At Sea (2009–2012) and No Ruined Stone (2015–2022) by Paul Duke, previously displayed at the City Art Centre in 2022.
Two works by Will Maclean – De Bestis Marins (For Simon Lew ty)’ (2014) and ‘Mariner s Museum / Taxonomy of Tides’ (2014) – also previously displayed at the City Art Centre in 2022 in Maclean’s exhibition Points of Departure have now entered the city of Edinburgh’s collection. ‘De Bestis Marins (for Simon Lewty)’ includes the sole of a shoe and a cluster of beach things, sent to Maclean years earlier by the artist Simon Lewty from his childhood beach in Swanage. Lewty and Maclean collaborated for over a decade both finding inspiration in language
history memory, exploration and the sea. ‘Mariner’s Museum / Taxonomy of Tides is considered by Maclean to be one of his finest recent works. e
City Ar t Centre has also acquired three works by the Scotland-based, Palestinian artist Leena Nammari made between 2013 and 2020. Curator Helen Scot says:
‘Leena Nammari is a highly respected printmaker who has been recognised with several awards and artists’ residencies over the years. e purchase of these artworks is an excellent opportunity to further strengthen and diversify the City Art Centre s holdings of contemporary Scotish printmaking As demonstrations of outstanding technical skill and creative subtlety they capture the evolution of Nammari s distinctive style.’
One of the National Gallery of Scotland: Por trait s most distinctive and haunting works has to be Ken Currie s 2002 painting ‘ree Oncologists’, depicting three professors who were leading innovators in cancer research at the University of Dundee and its affiliated teaching hospital, Ninewells. Now another Ken Currie work has joined the collection, with the acquisition of ‘Unknown Man (2019), a portrait of the pre - eminent forensic anthropologist, Professor Dame Sue Black. Currie regards ‘Unknown Man’ as being connected to ‘ree Oncologists’, and a progression from this work. Meanwhile, the world-leading surrealist collection at the National Gallery of Scotland: Modern has been further enhanced with the purchase of ‘Encounter (1959) by Mexican surrealist Remedios Varo (1908–1963).
‘One of the National Galler y of Scotland: Portrait’s most distinctive and haunting works has to be Ken Currie’s 2002 painting “Three Oncologists”, depicting three professors who were leading innovators in cancer research at the University of Dundee and its affiliated teaching hospital, Ninewells’
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e National Galleries of Scotland exhibition programme also inspired acquisitions elsewhere with Aberdeen Archives Gallery and Museums collection acquiring Grayson Perry s pot, ‘Alan Measles and Claire Under an English Moon’ (2023) following curator Morna Annandale’s visit to the artist s retrospective show in 2023. ‘I loved this pot from the moment I first saw it at Smash Hits the biggest exhibition of Perry’s work to date at the National Gallery of Scotland,’ says Annandale. ‘It resonates with work already in our collection such as other ceramics shaped like highly prized 18thcentury Korean moon jars, and ancient Greek pots decorated with figures that tell a story.’ e pot features Perry’s childhood teddy bear Alan Measles, and the artist s alter ego Claire It is on display until the end of the year in Aberdeen Art Gallery’s aptly named New Acquisitions exhibition.
PRIVATE VIEW
With the Fleming Collection’s Elizabeth Blackadder painting ‘Cat and Flowers’ (1981) currently on loan to Chichester’s Pallant House, the gallery’s chief curator, Melanie Vandenbrouck, highlights a boundarypushing work from their own collection by Scotish artist Jo Ganter
Pallant House Gallery in Chichester is known as a ‘collection of collections’, its substantial holdings of modern and contemporary British art having largely come through a series of gifs, starting with the gallery’s founding bequest of 164 works in 1982 by Dean Walter Hussey Since then, the collection has grown to number over 5000 items.
Remarkably it comprises one of the most distinctive collections of Scotish art outside of Scotland. ese include a sizeable group of works by Eduardo Paolozzi (mostly coming from the Wilson Gif in 2006), and an important collection of prints, built up over the years through the generosity of collectors and philanthropists Mark Golder and Brian ompson. ey first approached Pallant House Gallery in 2001, initially with the specific intention of building holdings of Scotish contemporary prints. ese were to include works by Scotish-born artists, artists working in Scotland, or artists collaborating with the major Scotish printmaking workshops, with a particular emphasis on works by artists identifying as women. is specific endeavour lasted the best part of a decade the focus changing to other areas of printmaking in the 2010s, and the Golder -ompson Gif now numbers over 550 prints.
‘Paper piece no. 3 ( 2001) is encased in a lightbox that reveals subtle variations of texture and tonal density across the thin sheet of paper ’
Carefully selected in collaboration between the gallery and the donors, these prints explore the breadth and richness of the medium. Among these and currently on display, a remarkable work by Jo Ganter RSA pushes the boundaries of printmaking ‘Paper piece no 3’ (2001) is encased in a lightbox that reveals subtle variations of texture and tonal density across the thin sheet of paper As Ganter explains: ‘My work then, as now was abstract but intended to create a sense of real space and light, inspired by architectural space.’ An artist intensely engaged with the medium of printmaking, in 2000 Ganter was looking to approach paper in a more experimental manner She made a first visit to Dieu Donné papermill in Manhatan, New York, which supports artists in using the process of
hand papermaking Afer a year absorbing the possibilities of this newly acquired knowledge she returned to Dieu Donné on 10 September 2001, making the eight works from her Paper piece series over the next few days (as she explains, the series is now in her mind, inextricably linked to witnessing the events of 9/11).
e series is characterised by a precise manipulation of linen pulp but also an element of chance. Ganter wrote of the experience: ‘I arrive [at Dieu Donné] with quite strong ideas about light, transparency and space but the medium demands that I improvise along the way the drying process might show me a completely different work to the one I thought I’d made two days earlier.’ Each sheet from the series was made in layers of linen pulp dyed in shades of grey and neutral. Ganter introduced window-shaped or grid-like watermarks through blocking the deckle (the frame on the mould used to shape the pulp) with masking tape while thin lines were drawn by pushing darker pulp through a syringe. e resulting build-up of pulp was then over -beaten and lef to dry for two days, creating a thin, translucent piece, its subtlety and delicacy further emphasised by its display in a lightbox. Each work, resolutely unique and handbuilt, sits on the very edge of the print medium. For Ganter ‘there is a cycle of making marks with a particular intention, losing sight of them during a part of the process, and the whole new revelation of the work when viewed again, that is, of course so like printmaking
Melanie Vandenbrouck is Chief Curator at Pallant House Gallery
‘Paper piece no 3’ (2001) by Jo Ganter is currently on display in Pallant House’s collection spaces.
e Fleming Collection s Elizabeth Blackadder painting Cat and Flowers (1981), is currently on loan as part of:
e Shape of ings: Still Life in Britain
Until 20 October Pallant House Gallery
8– 9 North Pallant, Chichester PO19 1TJ T (0)1243 774557 | pallant.org uk
At the centre of Cathy Wilkes (b. 1966) new exhibition at the Hunterian is the story of Emma Groves, a Belfast mother of 11, shot in the face with a rubber bullet afer she disobeyed the orders of the British paratroopers searching her street. Groves had been playing a nationalist folk song, ‘e Four Green Fields’, in defiance of a British Army neighbourhood search. She was told to close her window She refused and was blinded for life
Cathy Wilkes (herself a native of Belfast, born to a Protestant family in Dundonald in 1966, five years before the atack on Groves) is not an artist predisposed to extensive exposition. is new show realised through the Imperial War Museum s 14–18 NOW Legacy Fund, consists of entirely untitled works, and there’s not a wall-text in sight. But we can piece together from the materials gathered in vitrines that Groves is the likely subject of the central sculptural piece A layered-paper cast of a middleaged female form, sheets fraying at the
fingertips, stands facing a wall with her head, shoulders, neck and torso bending painfully backwards, as if recoiling from a blow Inches from her face is a rubber bullet, suspended in a transparent plastic tube emerging from a neatly drilled hole in the wall. e face and crown of the head are paterned ochre and red with collaged fragments of paper suggesting blood or sites of traumatic impact.
is is the gesture – breathtaking viscerally affective – around which the exhibition coheres, from which other works seem to emerge like echoes or acts of remembrance It represents a stunningly direct statement for an artist whose practice has, over recent years, seemed to recede into shadowy albeit captivating abstraction. Wilkes last two shows in Glasgow held at the Modern Institute in 2021 and 2023, consisted primarily of paintings in pigment and gum Arabic that barely touched the surface of the fabric or linen on which they were composed. e former
exhibition also included translucent fabric and wire sculptures. To be sure hints of figurative detail abounded in these pieces: suggestions of torsos, limbs, domestic objects (the mis - en-scene of the feminised home is a recurring theme of Wilkes). But no sooner had the suggestion lodged itself than it seemed to flit away and with it any biographical traces or social commentary bound up with it.
Here we have as it were a peg on which to hang more specific inferences of context and content. Moreover, the space in which the Groves -like figure stands has been minimally furnished to suggest a working- class 1970s living room, with humdrum flower -paterned sconce lamps, a taty wooden chair and what looks like a child s jacket and satchel hanging on pegs in the adjoining corridor Violence it seems, has invaded the home: banal, quotidian violence, and the ongoing underlying threat of violence that colonises the mind like a dull pain. is is the violence
that weaved itself through the lives of women and girls growing up in Belfast in the 1970s and 80s (analogies with Maria Fusco’s recent film History of e Present covered in Scotish Art News issue 36, are too striking not to mention in passing).
In the aforementioned vitrines, is a selection of booklets, pamphlets, placards and other archival ephemera that roots the collection of works still more clearly in the Belfast of the Troubles. ere is a hastily drawn-up poster reading Stop RUC Brutality’, magazine photos of living rooms damaged by military assaults, and an article from Socialist Woman showing Groves’ horribly bruised face below the headline ‘How British troops “keep the peace”’.
e remainder of this exhibition consists mainly of paintings, some created through rudimentary transfer techniques. Painted surfaces have been pressed to the canvas with the artist s fingers; string has been dipped in paint
‘This is a show that brilliantly and devastatingly suggests the ongoing psychological impact of brutality while pointing towards the possible conditions of healing through shared ritual’
and flicked or draped across it. ere s an all-at- once -ness to these modes of composition that makes the resultant works imprints of single moments in time. Allusions to the moment of violence depicted elsewhere in the exhibition are more bound up in the process than the resultant images; as though these pieces arose from the repetitive spasming of memory returning the mind over and over again to the earlier, catastrophic moment represented by the sculpture One such painting seems spatered with blood-red, leaning towards a more representational effect.
e other binding image across these paintings is that of the candle. e shape is built up in most cases through repeated squares of motled paint transfer and in one case using offcuts of fabric probably belonging to the artist (one scrap has been taken from the inside of a pocket, and still has lint and crumbs on it). ere is an illustratively Catholic quality to the candle motif that is noteworthy given Wilkes s own perspective on the events explored. Perhaps there’s a similar quality to the various accompanying sculptural works consisting of sheets and fabrics of various sizes draped over rectangular mounts, suggesting children s clothing the blankets used by IRA hunger strikers to conceal their prison clothes, or possibly veiled icons.
If Wilkes more abstract twodimensional works, furnished by the context of Groves story suggest the afershocks of violence her candle paintings speak to themes of healing ritual, acts of peaceful communion. is is a show that brilliantly and devastatingly suggests the ongoing psychological impact of brutality while pointing towards the possible conditions of healing through shared ritual.
Greg omas is a critic and editor based in Glasgow
Cathy Wilkes
Until 19 September e Hunterian
University of Glasgow 82 Hillhead Street, Glasgow G12 8QQ
T: (0)141 330 4221 | gla.ac.uk/hunterian
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 10am -5pm
John Akomfrah: Listening All Night To e Rain
British Pavilion, Venice
Until 24 November
John Akomfrah s (b.1957) new commission for this year’s British Pavilion, curated by Tarini Malik, is conceived as a single artwork of interconnected film and sound installations, creating an immersive environment where the inter -relations between historical and current colonialism, migration, globalisation and climate change are explored across eight Cantos, a conspicuously textual structure inspired by Ezra Pound s (1885–1972) journey through history in his long poem ‘e Cantos (begun in 1925).
Akomfrah s first Canto, described in the guidebook as an intervention on the façade of the neoclassical-style pavilion, occupies and replaces the main (and normally working) entrance to the building. is intervention literally opens up the exhibition, initially exposing its contents to the outside viewer. e opening section displays imagery and voices from the Global South, presenting the first element in the work’s recurrent questioning of the ownership of the
voice (who speaks? And who hears?) in the process of history-making e Cantos contain newly filmed material, found still images, archival film and video footage audio clips and texts from international archives and libraries, and a wealth of references and allusions to philosophy politics, poetics and art, from the Global South to the post-modern West. In Canto III’, we enter an immersive sculptural sound installation, created in collaboration with Dubmorphology (Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison) who have previously worked closely with Akomfrah as part of the Black Audio Film Collective (1983–98).
is sculpture (asserting the ‘listening’ of the work s title) consists of over 400 archival audiophonic recording and replay objects that emphasise the mechanisms of recording and listening in history-making: sound as the evocation of memory is deeply layered environment allows the visitor to engage with history via Steven Feld’s relational ontology of sound as ‘acoustemology’, an auditory
histories presented in the work and enmesh ourselves in the dense web of intertextual allusions that accompanies the imagery Each Canto is prefaced by a quotation, and pictorial and textual references abound, principally to African-American and Anglo-Caribbean modernity (Malcolm X, Angela Davis, WEB duBois, Stuart Hall; still images recur throughout the different Cantos of Malcolm X, Coreta Scot King James Baldwin and other notable AfricanAmericans all engaged in telephone calls), to the odysseys of Homer and James Joyce and to traditions of ecological thought (notably the American Rachel Carson, who occupies Canto V’, but also to media environmentalists like the English David Bellamy).
embodiment of the work s wider concern with what the Martiniquean philosopher Édouard Glissant (repeatedly referenced in the exhibition) calls a ‘poetics of relations’: a conception of history as relatedness, in which understanding can only evolve from positions within and in relation to nodes of meaning sites of experience traces of events and movements and displacements.
Flow is a crucial element of Listening All Night To e Rain. It s experienced physically in the way in which visitor movement is channelled from the now-inaccessible main entrance and round the pavilion s exterior to a back door, a symbolic relocation to a new entry point that makes overt the politics of architectural design. is movement from door to door is reiterated later in archive footage of Caribbean men walking the streets of 1950s London in search of accommodation, an echo of Trinidadian Sam Selvon s 1956 novel Lonely Londoners
e physical displacement encourages us to look awry at the
ese work alongside many other literary and philosophical traditions, inter -relations asserting the work s concern with the continuous flow between old, new unrealised, or potential relations and networks of significance embedded in movements of sound, rhythm (in the form, for example of the metronome) and time
Most clearly flow and circularity are manifest in the insistent motif of water, its natural cycles interposing the rhythms of an increasingly compromised environmental system into the structures of history and culture Water’s ambivalent fluidity both life - giving and destructive (Carson s ‘chemical death rain’), provides a structuring dynamic to the whole work.
Connecting intimately to Venice s wet environs and the city’s economic, environmental and historical complexities, aquatic allusions occur in the title (citing the Chinese writer and artist Su Dongpo s poetic meditation on the transitory nature of life); in images of seascapes, clouds, mist and fog evoking German romantic traditions of contemplation (an element further heightened by the colours of each gallery space being influenced by the paintings
of Mark Rothko); or in footage of floods and rain, seen in representations of Bangladesh s devastating flooding from the 1980s.
is extended exploration of water’s ability to blur to magnify, to refract, to swell and to erode becomes an allegory of the ways in which history and its perception are continuously formed and deformed. Water’s erosive and engulfing power in particular, highlights the urgency of author bell hooks’ statement, prominently inscribed over the entrance to Canto VII’ and central to the complex political message of Listening All Night To e Rain Our struggle is also a struggle of memory against forgeting.’
Patricia Allmer is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at University of Edinburgh
John Akomfrah: Listening All Night To e Rain British Pavilion La Biennale di Venezia 2024, Venice venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org
e exhibition will tour in 2025 and 2026 to Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum Wales, Cardiff; Dundee Contemporary Arts; and TBA 21 yssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Madrid.
Patricia Allmer
EDINBURGH
Ade Adesina: INTERSECTION
Edinburgh Printmakers
27 July–10 November
W edinburghprintmakers.co uk
Presenting the artist s latest processes, including screen printing and lithography, as well as relief printing and sculptural works, this exhibition represents a journey of artistic exploration, with connections to cultural narratives set in a socio-political seting. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival (see edinburghartfestival.com for all events).
Tayo Adekunle: Stories of the Unseen
Edinburgh Printmakers
27 July–10 November
W edinburghprintmakers.co uk
e exhibition investigates stories about blackness from an alternative perspective, challenging historical narratives.
Adekunle’s new work examines the significance of conserving culture and heritage. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival.
Geoff Uglow: Beyond the Clouds
e Scotish Gallery
1–24 August
W scotish- gallery co uk
is festival exhibition gives viewers a glimpse into Uglow’s varied body of work and includes pieces from the artist s continuing series inspired by Edinburgh, as well as compelling Italian landscapes, lush rose gardens and peaceful seascapes. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival.
Gerald Laing: My th & Muse / e Cult of Celebrity Fine Art Society
Until 31 August
W thefineartsociety com
is exhibition shows sculptures, paintings, and prints by British Pop artist Gerald Laing (1936–2011), concentrating on the cult of celebrity: myth-making of individuals, events, and the elevation of people to muses through an abstracted notion of their public image.
Moyna Flannigan: Space Shuffle
Collective
Until 15 September
W edinburghartfestival.com
In its 40th year Collective invites back Moyna Flannigan, a renowned Scotish artist and early commitee member to exhibit new work specifically designed for its City Dome gallery. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival.
Style & Society: Dressing the Georgians
e King’s Gallery
Until 22 September
W rct.uk/visit/the -kings- gallery-palaceof-holyroodhouse
e exhibition dives into what Georgians wore, from the basic atire of laundry maids to the beautiful gowns worn at court, and how they introduced many of the cultural trends we know today.
e Georgians’ style is told through paintings, prints, and sketches, as well as beautiful textiles, jewels, and more. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival.
Chris Ofili: e Caged Bird’s Song Dovecot Studios
Until 5 October
W dovecotstudios.com
is summer Dovecot s major tapestry
‘e Caged Bird’s Song’ by Chris Ofili (commissioned by e Clothworkers’ Company), will be displayed in the context of the tapestry workshop where it was created. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival.
Adam Bruce omson: e Quiet Path
City Art Centre
Until 6 October
W edinburghmuseums.org uk
A retrospective show, with works from omson s early student compositions to the haunting Scotish landscapes of his later years. e exhibition explores the artist s developing style and his significant influence on Scotish art as a teacher, mentor and friend to other artists. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival. See page 32.
An Irish Impressionist: Lavery on Location
National Galleries of Scotland: National (Royal Scotish Academy)
20 July–27 October
W nationalgalleries.org
is solo exhibition of paintings explores the life of well-known Belfast-born artist Sir John Lavery as he travelled on location’. e exhibit showcases enticing portraits, impressionistic landscapes and ideal scenes of leisure against backdrops of Tangier Palm Springs, the Venice Lido, and more. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival. See page 24.
Tania Kovats: SEAMARKS
Dovecot Studios
27 July–2 November
W dovecotstudios.com
is show focuses on Tania Kovats’ ongoing project SEAMARKS, which features different seascapes depicted in brushstrokes, sketches and potery and now the development of a new tapestry by Dovecot Studios. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival.
Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990
National Galleries of Scotland: Modern Two
Until 26 January 2025 W nationalgalleries.org
Women in Revolt! discusses significant topics and subjects such as the Women’s Liberation Movement, the peace movement, the visibility of black and South Asian female artists, Section 28 and the AIDS pandemic, using a variety of mediums. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival.
GLASGOW
Cathy Wilkes
e Hunterian
Until 29 September
W: gla.ac uk/hunterian
As a partner for the Imperial War Museum art commissioning programme, the Hunterian opens an exhibition of new work by Cathy Wilkes exploring themes of war and conflict, made possible by the IWM 14–18 NOW Legacy Fund. See page 49.
Discovering Degas
Burrell Collection
Until 30 September
W: burrellcollection.com
e first exhibition in which visitors may see all 23 Degas paintings from Burrell’s original collection in one location.
AROUND SCOTLAND
Lys Hansen: Live it Paint it
Callendar House, Falkirk
Until 11 August
W: falkirkleisureandculture.org
is exhibition combines paintings and objects, providing a view into the many facets of Hansen’s practice, as well as her many methods and approaches to creating art. Her work swings between joy and tragedy, capturing the human condition, both internal and external. See page 28.
Alberta Whitle: Under the skin of the ocean, the thing urges us up wild Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute
Until 25 August
W: mountstuart.com
Alberta Whitle presents a site-specific installation that explores notions of ancestral roots, trade routes, power routes and empire roots across the Mount Stuart site.
I Once Went Down to the Sea Again
e Wyllieum, Greenock
Until 1 September
W wyllieum.com
e first temporary show to be held in the newly opened Wyllieum in Greenock; a gallery dedicated to the work and memory of George Wyllie. e show presents Wyllie’s ‘Spires’ and is curated by Wyllieum director Will Cooper and sculptor Sara Barker
Claire Barclay
Cample Line, Dumfriesshire
6 July– 8 September
W campleline org uk
Claire Barclay presents a new site-specific installation at Cample Line, drawing on Cample Mill’s past as a local textile production site.
Unicorn
Perth Museum
Until 22 September
W perthmuseum.co uk
Perth Museum s first exhibition since opening following an extensive redevelopment. It explores the story of Scotland’s national animal. Explore the fascinating history of this adored mythical creature via art, science, social movements, and popular culture.
Eye to Eye: Sir Henry Raeburn s Portraits Kirkcudbright Galleries
Until 29 September
W kirkcudbrightgalleries.org uk Raeburn is well known for his paintings of men. is exhibition will focus instead on displaying characterful paintings of women and children and includes pieces that have never been seen in public before, the majority of which are from southern Scotish collections.
We Move as a Murmuration
Timespan, Helmsdale
Until 30 September
W: timespan.org uk
A group show curated by Naoko Mabon and Timespan director Giulia Gregnanin that explores the interwoven interactions between humans and birds. It examines the oppression, dominance and alienation of nature and birds under capitalist, colonial and modernist influences, with an emphasis on environmental and social justice.
Sir William Gillies and the
Scotish Landscape
Aberdeen Ar t Gallery
Until 10 November
W: aberdeencity.gov uk
e exhibition features a diverse range of oil and watercolour paintings by William Gillies from the Aberdeen City collection that portray rolling farmland, trees and coastal landscapes.
Claudia Mar tínez Garay
Dundee Contemporary Ar ts
Until 17 November
W: dca.org uk
is is Claudia Martínez Garay’s first major solo exhibition in Scotland. Works include painting, sculpture, printmaking, video and site-specific installation, studying how artefacts, cultural relics and propaganda convey cultural history and political memory
Impressed: Twentieth Century Ar tist
Prints from Dundee’s Collection
e McManus: Dundee’s Ar t Gallery & Museum
Until 18 November
W: mcmanus.co uk
Showcasing works from the city’s extraordinary collection of 20th-century
fine art prints, the show highlights Scotland’s pivotal role in the resurgence of artist printmaking in the later half of the 20th century and includes works by local, regional and international artists.
Favourite Centres and New Flavours
Kirkcaldy Galleries
Until 31 December
W: onfife.com
ese two new displays were curated thanks to the feedback of the gallery’s audience. e first features some of the gallery’s most requested paintings. e second presents newly acquired works and pieces that have rarely, or never, been on display at the gallery
is Fragile Ear th: How Pioneer
Scotish Ar tists Anticipated the
Climate Crisis
Stirling University
2 September 2024–18 August 2025
W: stir.ac.uk/about/art- collection/ whats - on
A ground-breaking exhibition by the Fleming Collection tours to Stirling University, focusing on a group of veteran artists who were ahead of their time responding to the threat of climate change. See page 18.
SCOTLAND ELSEWHERE
Scotish Women Ar tists: 250 Years of Challenging Perceptions
FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio, Banbridge
Until 2 September
W: femcwilliam.com
is exhibition, which includes the work of over 40 artists, focuses on key women artists who successfully challenged society’s expectations and artistic norms to define the history of Scotish art from the 18th century to the present. See page 11.
e Shape of ings
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
Until 20 October
W: pallant.org uk
Demonstrating the significance still life has for artists and society, the exhibition (which features modern and contemporary British artists) delves into the rich symbolism of the genre and how it has pushed boundaries and introduced new ideas. e exhibition also features the Fleming Collection’s ‘Cat and Flowers’ painting by Elizabeth Blackadder. See Private View, page 47
