Edinburgh-born Naomi Mitchison was a poet and writer of plays, fiction and essays. A member of the aristocratic Haldane family, she married Labour politician G. Richard Mitchison, with whom she entertained a circle of intellectuals and literary friends at their home in Kintyre. Mitchison’s first novels, including The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931), show her interest in classical history and mythology. During the 1940s and 1950s, Scottish themes became more dominant in her writing. In later years, Mitchison travelled widely and was adopted as ‘mother’ of the Bakgatla people of Botswana. Mitchison died at Carradale aged 101. The sculptor of this posthumous bust, Archie Forrest, chose to represent Mitchison in old age and used photographs of her in her nineties to create this portrait.