Scottish National Portrait Gallery Print Room
With over 20,000 prints and around 1,500 drawings and watercolours, the Print Room portrait collection is the largest in Scotland and one of the most extensive in the United Kingdom. Also available for consultation are over 1,500 small portraits: miniatures, Tassie medallions and commemorative medals.

The drawings, dating from the sixteenth century to the present day, are almost exclusively of Scots, while the extensive print collection comprises Scottish, English and foreign sitters. The Print Room also holds important caricatures and satires relating to aspects of Scottish history.

The Print Room is open by appointment only, Monday to Friday from 10am-12.30pm and 2-4.30pm. Contact us to make an appointment.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery Photography Collection
Established in 1984 and containing both Scottish and international work, the Photography Collection holds around 30,000 photographs dating from the 1840s to the present day.

Scottish photography has been internationally renowned since its beginnings, principally due to David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, whose 5,000 works form a central part of the Collection. Other nineteenth-century Scottish highlights include Lewis Carroll's portraits of George Macdonald's family, Dr John Murray's grand prints of Indian architecture and James Cox's photographs of the Auchmithie fishing village.

The Collection also contains photographs by distinguished outsiders whose practice was of particular importance in Scotland in the mid-twentieth century. These include such people as Humphrey Spender, Bert Hardy, Bill Brandt, Wolfgang Suschitzky and Roger Mayne. Their influence on the strong documentary tradition in Scottish photography can be seen in work by Grace Robertson, Joseph McKenzie and Oscar Marzaroli.

International works include photographs taken by Roger Fenton in the Crimea in the 1850s and Samuel Bourne in India in the 1870s. A diverse range of twentieth-century photography includes work by Eve Arnold, Annie Leibovitz and Dieter Appelt.

Visitors can access the collection by appointment, Monday to Friday from 10am-1pm and 2-4.30pm. Contact us to make an appointment.