19 minute read
News
ISSUE 34 / SUMMER 2021
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
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This summer, in a joyous celebration of Scottish creativity, the Fleming Collection has mounted two exhibitions at opposite ends of the country: one on the Glasgow Girls and Boys at Kirkcudbright Art Gallery and the other on the Scottish Colourists at Inverness Art Gallery and Museum. The core of both exhibitions is drawn from the Fleming Collection itself, deemed to be the finest outside public institutions, although the Kirkcudbright show also includes generous loans from the National Galleries of Scotland and private collections. This must be the first time that these two groups of artists, which between them stand as the early ‘moderns’ of Scottish art, can be seen at contemporaneous exhibitions, prompting the ambition that one day the Fleming Collection can unite both shows under the banner Scottish Painters of the Modern World 1880–1935. As the putative title suggests, this would reveal that these two generations of artists, until now seen as discrete groups, in fact embodied an arc of talent inspired by French artistic innovation. Is there a museum curator out there to run with this modest proposal? These themed shows are the standard bearers for our Museum without Walls strategy, which plays a key role in fulfilling the Fleming Collection’s charitable goal of promoting Scottish art and creativity across the UK and beyond. Our showcasing of Scottish art also drives our acquisitions policy, which aims to fill key gaps in our historic collection as well as buying work by living artists. A few weeks before the Kirkcudbright exhibition, we acquired two rare drawings by Annie French (1872–1965), one of the brilliant circle of women artists, illustrators and designers who have become known as the Glasgow Girls. Within weeks they were hanging in the Kirkcudbright exhibition being seen by the public for the first time in over 100 years. Next year, her work will join other recently acquired paintings and drawings by Phoebe Anna Traquair and Agnes Miller Parker (see pages 28 and 31) in our next themed show, Scottish Women Artists, which, all being well, will open in summer 2022 at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich.
This edition of Scottish Art News celebrates one of the mid-century giants of Scottish painting, Joan Eardley (1921–1963), marking the centenary of her birth. In our long-running online feature, whereby cultural figures rise to the challenge of choosing their favourite Scottish work of art, writer and broadcaster James Naughtie and actor Bill Paterson both offered insights into her rootedness as an artist. Naughtie chose an Aberdeenshire landscape, which he said ‘brings back to me all the texture of these days, rich and unchanging as the seasons’. Paterson, choosing a chalk drawing of Eardley’s tumbledown studio in Glasgow’s Townhead, wrote: ‘Very little survives of the district that she, and my mother and father, knew, but at least we have these evocative paintings of people and streets. Joan Eardley’s work truly encompassed the extremes of Scotland.’ In further thrilling news,
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the Fleming Collection’s own Eardley paintings will be on loan to an exhibition celebrating the artist’s centenary at Perth Museum and Art Gallery opening in November. As part of his homage to Eardley, Paterson wrote of an artist, Faith O’Reilly, whom he first met in France ‘a lifetime after’ his childhood days in Townhead. O’Reilly, it turned out, had been part of the colony of artists at the fishing hamlet of Catterline on the Aberdeenshire coast, which had been established by Eardley. O’Reilly had been invited there by Eardley’s disciple and muse, Lil Neilson, and stayed on and off for ten years. O’Reilly has now generously donated a group of drawings, dating from the 1960s, to the Fleming Collection. These throw fresh light on the Catterline community following Eardley’s death and connect to a fine work by Neilson in the collection. Faith O’Reilly’s gift has revealed how much there is still to discover and record about key moments and movements in Scottish art history. Another example came to light after Neil MacGregor chose Ian Hamilton Finlay’s relief carving ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’ (National Galleries of Scotland) as his favourite work of art. The carver of the relief, John Andrew, got in touch, which led to the commissioning of a series of interviews with Andrew, who is in his late eighties, conducted by scholar and writer Greg Thomas. Their conversations will in the future be an invaluable resource towards further understanding Finlay’s working methods. The needs of art education stretch across all demographics, and so we have continued our Young People’s Art Competition, originally initiated as a source of creative inspiration last year for those feeling the drain of home schooling. Winners will be announced later this summer. On a different scale, we have also collaborated with the visual arts advocacy and training network Engage Scotland to support a project for young people who have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The project will involve printmaking workshops, taking place this autumn, to be partially inspired by field trips into the Highland landscape. Nature like art has been a source of solace to many through these difficult times, as a recent visitor to see The Glasgow Girls and Boys at Kirkcudbright testified when she wrote: ‘I loved this exhibition: beautiful paintings and visiting the gallery last week felt like the first bit of normality in a very long time. It brought a tear to my eye!’
James Knox is the director of the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation
The Glasgow Girls and Boys runs at Kirkcudbright Art Gallery until 12 September; The Scottish Colourists runs at Inverness Art Gallery and Museum until 28 August
Read more favourite work of art choices at flemingcollection.com
1 Annie French, Two Ladies, c. 1895 © Estate of A J French / Bridgeman Images / 2020. The Fleming Collection
2 Lil Neilson, Salmon Nets Drying, c. 1969 © The Artist's Estate. The Fleming Collection
3 FCB Cadell, The Dunara Castle at Iona, c. 1929. The Fleming Collection
Appointments Art builds
Moira Jeffrey appointed director of the Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN)
A trusted voice and respected leader in the contemporary art community, Moira Jeffrey has more than 20 years of experience in the visual arts in Scotland including roles in arts journalism and broadcasting, public funding, development work and research. This appointment follows on from her previous role at SCAN as advocacy and development lead.
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Previously professor of fine art and research lead in the School of Arts & Humanities at the Royal College of Art (RCA), the artist, curator and academic Rebecca Fortnum has joined the Glasgow School of Art as their head of fine art this summer. Fortnum’s other academic roles have included University of the Arts London, where she was reader in fine art, and Middlesex University, London, where she was professor of fine art. Fortnum was also instrumental in founding the London-based artist-run spaces Cubitt and Gasworks.
The Fruitmarket reopens
Natalia Palombo is recognised for her contributions across the UK and sub-Saharan Africa as a leading visual arts curator and cultural developer. Since 2012, Palombo has led on the design, development and management of Many Studios, a creative organisation based in the East End of Glasgow comprising a creative hub supporting 60 tenants, an international arts programme (The Gallow Gate) and consultancy and research across the creative industries. Palombo joins Deveron Projects, a socially engaged arts organisation based in the rural market town of Huntly, during its 25th anniversary year.
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Following a £4.3m redesign, expansion and refurbishment by Edinburgh-based architects Reiach and Hall, and a two year wait, Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket has reopened its doors. Expansion into the historic warehouse next to the original gallery space, most recently the Electric Circus nightclub, has doubled the gallery’s footprint and the scope of the organisation’s programming: this steelframed, brick-lined building will lend itself to theatre and music, spoken word and dance, in addition to the presentation of visual art. The pre-existing exhibition galleries have also been upgraded and the Fruitmarket now hosts a brand new learning studio, an enlarged information room, café and bookshop. A major exhibition by one of Scotland’s most renowned sculptors, Glasgow-based Karla Black, inaugurates the newly expanded space (see review, page 53).
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An important milestone has been passed for Hospitalfield as it completes phase 1 of an £11m ‘Future Plan’ which will see a restoration of the 19th-century Arts & Crafts house and studios. Phase 1 includes a newly developed garden designed by Nigel Dunnett, a restored 19th-century fernery and the opening of a glasshouse café. The new garden will be in full bloom in late summer and features sustainable planting designed to promote self-seeding. The restoration of the Victorian fernery, originally designed by Patrick Allan Fraser in the late 1800s, sees the return of a roof, designed by Stirling Prize-winning architects Caruso St John, and the start of a managed fern collection, gifted by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, now taking root at Hospitalfield. Purpose-built artist studios, a renovation of the historic house and the addition of a new gallery and visitor centre will follow in the coming years.
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Scottish Sculpture Workshop unveils plans for first phase of £1.75m development
The Lumsden-based Scottish Sculpture Workshop has unveiled plans for the first phase of their £1.75 million capital development project, which will see the creation of a new community space, expansion of ceramics studios and newly refurbished artist studios and accommodation, all realised in the coming year. The developments will be led by Collective Architecture and will begin in autumn 2021. Phase 2 of the capital project, which is currently being fundraised for, will focus on the development of new workshops, including foundry and casting spaces, wood and metal workshops and additional storage for materials and an accessible residential bothy.
Highland cultural organisation Timespan nominated for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2021
Located in Helmsdale, a village of around 800 inhabitants in the northeast of the Scottish Highlands, Timespan is an ambitious, multifunctional cultural centre, featuring a local history museum, contemporary art programme, public archive, geology and herb gardens, shop, bakery and café. Timespan commissions four major projects a year, each aligned with broader social movements. The organisation runs innovative youth clubs that ‘aim to tackle big issues in fun, creative and joyous ways’ and programmes across the community through the People’s Mobile Archive, which takes collections directly into village homes through activity, archive and research packs. Timespan also offers a mobile heritage lending library service, a local history pamphlet series, an online sound archive and a series of digital apps and trails. The other museums shortlisted for the prize are Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry (Derry / Londonderry, Northern Ireland), Experience Barnsley (Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England), Firstsite (Colchester, Essex, England) and Thackray Museum of Medicine (Leeds, West Yorkshire, England). The Art Fund Museum of the Year winner will be announced at a ceremony in the week commencing 20 September and will receive £100,000. The other four shortlisted museums will each receive £15,000 in recognition of their achievements.
While this issue of Scottish Art News forms part of the Joan Eardley centenary celebrations, there are a number of other important birthdays and anniversaries being marked this year . . .
Jock McFadyen’s 70th Birthday Exhibitions
Paisley-born Jock McFadyen turned 70 in 2020 and to celebrate, galleries across the UK have programmed solo exhibitions. The first opened in late 2020 at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre with Jock McFadyen Goes to the Pictures and this summer, the Scottish Gallery and Dovecot Studios are hosting Lost Boat Party, an exhibition of paintings which describe the romance and grandeur of the Scottish landscape, alongside the urban dystopia for which the artist is known. A retrospective at the Lowry in Salford and a display at the Royal Academy will follow.
New online map launched for George Wyllie’s centenary anniversary
In preparation for the centenary anniversary of his birth, the family of the Scottish artist and writer George Wyllie are inviting people to share their stories about his work and contribute to a new online map detailing the artist’s public – and not so public – sculptures, which are located all over Scotland and around the world. The project also aims to include the locations and details of Wyllie’s temporary installations, which now exist only in memory and archive material. The centenary project, titled Mapping Memories, went live on 31 December 2020, on what would have been the artist’s 99th birthday. Throughout the year leading up to Wyllie’s 100th birthday on Hogmanay 2021, the George Wyllie Estate will welcome public contributions to the project and will publish previously unseen material from the artist’s own archive.
Share your story about Wyllie’s work at georgewyllie.com
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150 years of Peploe at the Scottish Gallery
Throughout October, the Scottish Gallery will be celebrating the life and works of Samuel Peploe with a major exhibition of his paintings and drawings to coincide with his 150th anniversary. Noted for his still-life works, during his lifetime Peploe exhibited in Edinburgh, London, Paris and New York and his work was acquired by the Scottish and French national collections. In the 86 years since his death, Peploe has been recognised for his contribution to European modernism by major institutions and art critics around the world. The October exhibition will include examples from every period, charting his changes of studio, including his years in Paris and conversion to the way of colour and expressionism. It will feature the subjects of Jeannie Blyth, the gypsy flower girl who sat for him over a ten-year period, his French panels which defined his arrival as a colourist from 1908–1912 and his brilliant output as a draughtsman. There will be significant works for sale and key loans of many of his greatest paintings sourced from the great private collections known to the gallery. His grandson Guy Peploe, the recognised world authority on Peploe, has curated the month and will be lecturing and guiding visitors around the show. Included in the exhibition is a group of 30 neverbefore-seen drawings from a family archive.
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North Lands Creative mark their 25th anniversary with a showcase at Venice Glass Week in September. The exhibition, ASSEMBLY, celebrates the richness of the artists, designers and studios – from Murano to Seattle, Sydney to Edinburgh, Cluj-Napoca to Toyama – that have engaged with the prestigious, Caithnessbased glass centre over the last 25 years.
More Milestones
Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art is also celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, while 2021 marks 20 years of visual arts programming for Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute. This year is also the 40th anniversary of the Royal Scottish Academy’s John Kinross Scholarships, which have enabled over 400 emerging artists and architects to travel to Florence for a period of research and development since its inception. Andiamo, a new exhibition at the RSA opening in September, has been programmed to celebrate.
Aberdeen Art Gallery celebrates joint win of Art Fund Museum of the Year 2020 with new micro-commissions
Aberdeen Art Gallery is using its share of the £200,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year prize money to support new ‘micro-commissions’ from six creative practitioners living in AB postcode areas. The selected practitioners are Lynne Hocking-Mennie, Florence Reekie, Joshua Macpherson, Juliet Macleod, Kimberley Petrie and Joe Stollery. The commissions will support the creation of new works that relate to existing objects and themes in the Aberdeen Art Gallery collection, or that highlight gaps within it. Textile artist and scientist Lynne Hocking-Mennie will create work reflecting on the interconnected relationships between class, means of production and global-local consumption of woven fabrics created in Scotland, while selftaught realist painter Florence Reekie will explore Aberdeen’s rich history in textiles, developing ideas around fashion pollution, garment workers and throwaway culture. Painter and illustrator Joshua Macpherson will make work inspired by North Sea fishing industry workers and ceramicist Juliet Macleod will respond to sea-related works in the collection, including paintings by Frances Walker and Joan Eardley. The writer and spoken word artist Kimberley Petrie has proposed to create three new pieces in response to her favourite artwork in the collection, ‘Flood in the Highlands’ by Edwin Landseer, while composer Joe Stollery will create short musical interpretations of Aberdeen Art Gallery exhibitions for a small chamber group.
The University of Edinburgh commission major new work by Katie Paterson
As part of a programme of celebratory events to mark the King’s Buildings (KB) campus centenary, the University of Edinburgh’s College of Science and Engineering (CSE) has commissioned a permanent work of art by the Scottish artist and Edinburgh College of Art graduate Katie Paterson. The work, Ideas (2021), will take the form of 100 three-line texts cut in stainless steel (each an ‘Idea’), that will be situated in a variety of locations in and around the KB campus. Due to be installed in autumn 2021, some ideas will be immediately visible and others will be hidden in unexpected places, at varying levels, high and low. The locations will include internal and exterior walls as well as the grounds and gardens of KB. Each idea is inspired by scientific thought and research, and the subject matter is wideranging, from the first colours on earth to the universe’s last stars, involving fields such as chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, and geography.
1 SCAN Director Moira Jeffrey. Image © Alan Dimmick
2 Natalia Palombo. Image courtesy of Deveron Projects
3 Rebecca Fortnum, the new Head of Fine Art at The Glasgow School of Art
4 Fruitmarket Gallery. Visualisation of the connecting ramp. Courtesy Reiach and Hall Architects
5 Fernery, Hospitalfield, Arbroath. Photo by Lesley Martin
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SSW Internal - View into yard. Image courtesy of Scottish Sculpture Workshop
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Timespan Helmsdale. Image © Marc Atkins
8 Jock McFadyen, Oban, 2018. Image© Lucid Plane
9 George Wyllie © George Wyllie Estate
10 George Wyllie community project © George Wyllie Estate
11 Mary Bourne RSA, Inhabit (detail), 2020, Pink marble, grey and white marble tiles, charred oak table
12 Mary Maclean, Infinite Space, Uncertain (Blackboard #3), 2012
Joan Eardley is one of Scotland’s most popular and revered 20th-century artists. As 2021 marks the centenary of her birth, we take a look at some of the events and activities celebrating this major milestone
EARDLEY 100
Jan Patience
Major anniversaries have a habit of creeping up unbidden but, used wisely, they provide an opportunity to highlight, reconsider and discover more about an artist’s life; playing to a gallery of existing and yetto-be discovered fans. So it has proved with the centenary of the birth of the painter Joan Eardley, whose legacy we are in the midst of marking this year. Joan Eardley is, and always has been, an artist’s artist. Her standing among fellow artists and arts professionals has remained almost reverential since her death, aged 42, in 1963. The year after she died, Cordelia Oliver, artist, critic and contemporary from the Glasgow School of Art (GSA), wrote that her friend ‘painted her surroundings bonedeep’. Oliver would go on to document that feeling of raw connection in greater depth in her 1988 biography of Eardley. As a result of this ongoing love affair, Eardley 100 has developed into a hivelike happening like no other. I like to think that hard-grafting Joan, no fan of glitz and glamour, would have enjoyed the fact her family has joined forces with a group of influential women working behind the scenes in museums, galleries, archives, educational institutions and heritage organisations to create a centenary programme which is reaching out beyond the glittering salons. Traditionally, in the lead-up to the centenary of such a popular and influential artist as Eardley, a retrospective might have been planned. Timing is everything in the art world, however, and in Eardley’s case, the National Galleries of Scotland had already held two major exhibitions of her work in Edinburgh; a retrospective in 2007 and A Sense of Place in 2016–17, which focused on drawings and paintings made in Townhead, Glasgow, and at Catterline on Scotland’s north-east coast. This year could have offered a stage for a major centenary exhibition in her adopted home city of Glasgow or even in London, where she lived from the age of five to 18. It was certainly an ambition of Eardley’s artist niece, Anne Morrison-Hudson, who looks after the Eardley Estate. For various reasons, this did not happen.
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In April 2020, as the world headed into lockdown, it looked like her centenary year would pass unmarked. As the weeks went on, communications started to whirr in the ether between a newly formed group called the Scottish Women in the Arts Research Network (SWARN) and the Eardley Estate.
As a journalist who covers the Scottish art scene for The Herald newspaper, I had already had conversations with Anne Morrison-Hudson and other influential commentators about how to mark her legacy. Realising no major exhibition was going to happen, Anne and I hatched a plan to set up an official website and attendant social media. This was under construction when we were invited to join a Zoom meeting hosted by SWARN. Special mention for the creation of this can-do group must go to Dr Patricia de Montfort of the University of Glasgow’s School of Culture and Creative Arts, and her curator colleague, Anne Dulau, who have worked tirelessly to bring together a raft of professionals committed to enhancing the visibility in public collections of female creatives in fine arts, design, craft and architecture. Over the course of several months, as our lockdown locks grew ever-longer, the group behind SWARN grew in line with various plans from a growing roster of members looking to celebrate Eardley in her centenary year. What a joy it was to hear from the likes of Jenny Brownrigg and Susannah Thompson about their research into Eardley’s time at GSA (see page 13). These findings would, all being well, morph into an exhibition at the art school in late 2021. And then there was the revelation from Paisley Museum and Art Galleries curator Victoria Irvine that they had in their collection, among other Eardley works, a playpen made and designed by Eardley around the time she worked as a joiner’s labourer after leaving art school in 1943 (see page 24). It had been gifted to Paisley in the 1990s.
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