Press releases 2010
PRESS VIEW: 11.30 am – 1.00 pm, 26 November 2010
THE HENRY AND SULA WALTON COLLECTION
From 27 November 2010
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART,
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
Telephone 0131 624 6200
www.nationalgalleries.org
Admission free
This winter, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art will be showing part of an extraordinary private collection. Featuring twentieth-century work by artists as varied as Pablo Picasso, Joan Eardley, Joan Miró, Hans Hofmann, Howard Hodgkin and David Hockney, it also contains superb etchings by Rembrandt, Goya, Manet, Odilon Redon and others.
The collection has been assembled over a period of more than fifty years by Henry Walton and his late wife, Sula Walton. Henry Walton was Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of International Medical Education at the University of Edinburgh, and Past-president of the World Federation for Medical Education. Sula Wolff was a famous child psychiatrist, her books internationally acclaimed: Loners: The Life Path of Unusual Children and particularly Children Under Stress are globally known classics.
Together, the Waltons formed a fabulous collection not only of modern art, but also of Japanese prints, oriental ceramics, and African and Oceanic sculpture. Their fine art collection centres in particular on printmaking. Works on show will include Picasso’s linocut Portrait of a Young Girl, after Cranach the Younger, one of the artist’s greatest prints; a huge seascape by Eardley; and works by Anthony Gross, Elisabeth Frink, Richard Hamilton, Graham Sutherland and European artists such as Alexei Jawlensky and Max Pechstein. The display will feature some sixty works, but this is still only a fraction of the collection.
Henry Walton was born in South Africa in 1924 and Sula Wolff in Berlin in 1924. They met in London while undertaking postgraduate psychiatric training, and married in 1958. They lived and worked in Cape Town and New York before coming to Edinburgh in 1962. Their house in Blacket Place, photographed for the National Galleries by Antonia Reeve, was celebrated both for their collection and as much for their hospitality. The collection is a promised bequest to the National Galleries of Scotland.
Speaking of his lifelong passion for collecting, and his belief in the benefits of living with art, Professor Walton said: "Art trains you, through a lifetime, to tell a good picture. Good art grabs you and enables you to regenerate yourself, humanize yourself. It makes you an immeasurably better person."
Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary art at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “We are delighted to be showing such an extraordinary collection which promises not only a pure visual delight, but also invokes a sense of awe and admiration for the sheer verve of what a collector on limited means can achieve with dedication, determination, and desire.”
For further information and images please contact the National Galleries of Scotland’s press office on 0131 624 6247/6325/6314/6332 or [email protected].
PHOTOCALL: 11.30AM, 23rd DECEMBER 2010, NATIONAL GALLERY OF SCOTLAND
TURNER IN JANUARY: THE VAUGHAN BEQUEST
1 – 31 January 2011
THE NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh
Telephone 0131 6246 6200
www.nationalgalleries.org
The Gallery is open on 1 January from 12 noon until 5 pm; from 2 January opening hours revert to normal: Monday to Sunday 10 am – 5 pm, Thursday 10 am –7 pm
Admission free
Exhibition sponsored by Artemis Investment Management Ltd
In keeping with a century-old tradition, New Year’s Day at the National Gallery Complex in Edinburgh will be marked by the opening of the annual exhibition of watercolours by J M W Turner (1775–1851). The 38 works on display were bequeathed in 1900 by Henry Vaughan, a London art collector who amassed an outstanding group of watercolours by the British painter. A perennial favourite in the Gallery’s exhibition calendar, the display runs throughout January, providing a thoughtful counterpoint to the more energetic celebrations of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, and a welcome injection of light and colour during the darkest month of the year.
Recognised as perhaps the greatest of all British artists, Turner was a master of watercolour painting, using the medium to create stunning land and seascapes, topographical views and designs for book illustrations. Vaughan acquired examples from every period of the artist’s career, and chose each with a connoisseur’s eye for quality. The exquisite works in his bequest range from early wash drawings of the 1790s, to colourful and atmospheric watercolour sketches of Continental Europe, executed in the 1830s and 1840s.
For Turner, as for many artists and writers at the end of the eighteenth century, the vastness and violence of nature inspired a sense of awe, or even a terror, which was described as an experience of the ‘Sublime’. It was the opportunity to express these emotions through landscape painting which attracted Turner repeatedly to the mountains of Britain and the Continent, and to paint the savage elemental forces seen in avalanches, storms and mountainous seas. These experiences can be seen in works such as Loch Coruisk, Skye which was painted after one of the artist’s trips to the Scottish Highlands, in 1831, and Sion, Capital of the Canton Valais, which was created following one of his many journeys to the Swiss Alps.
Turner also visited Venice on three occasions, in 1819, 1833 and 1840, and the Vaughan Bequest features six of the artist’s stunning views of the city. In The Piazzetta, Venice, one of Turner’s most spectacular Venetian studies, a bolt of lightening dramatically illuminates the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Basilica. Turner created such effects by scratching away to reveal the paper once he had painted on it: he sometimes used his thumbnail, which he is reputed to have grown like an ‘eagle-claw’, for such a purpose.
Other works, such as The Grand Canal by the Salute, Venice, and The Sun of Venice, which were made in the city in 1840, demonstrate Turner’s consummate mastery of atmospheric lighting effects. In these watercolours, light itself seems to have become the main subject.
For much of his career, Turner was engaged in commissions to provide illustrations for books, and many of his trips were undertaken with a specific publishing project in mind. The artist’s prolific activities as an illustrator are represented here by a number of images, including scenes painted for Robert Cadell’s collected editions of the Poetical and Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott.
In his will Henry Vaughan stipulated that the Turner watercolours must not be subjected to permanent display, since continual exposure to light would result in their fading. He specified that the collection could only be shown in January, when daylight is at its weakest, and as a result the annual exhibition has become a much-loved tradition at the National Gallery of Scotland.
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For further information and images, please call the Press Office on 0131 624 6325/ 332/ 314
[email protected]
Notes to Editor
Events in conjunction with Turner in January include:
Thomas Campbell; Turner's Other Scottish Poet
Friday, 7th January 2011, 12.45-1.30pm
National Gallery Complex, Hawthornden Lecture Theatre
Free
'Behold the light of nature' - Ruskin on Turner, Edinburgh 1853
Wednesday, 12th January 2011, 12.45-1.30pm
National Gallery Complex, Hawthornden Lecture Theatre
Free
Retail stock related to Turner in January:
J.M.W. Turner The Vaughan Bequest catalogue by Christopher Baker - £12.95
Turner in January exhibition poster - £4.95
For further information please visit our website: http://www.nationalgalleries.org
PRESS VIEW: 11.30am – 1.30pm, 7th December 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
THE YOUNG VERMEER
8 December 2010 – 13 March 2011
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Telephone 0131 624 6200
www.nationalgalleries.org
Three early paintings by Johannes Vermeer will be reunited in a rare display at the National Galleries of Scotland this December. The Young Vermeer will present a unique opportunity to see three magnificent works by this much loved artist and discover how he became one of the most iconic painters of the Dutch Golden Age. This is the first exhibition in Scotland devoted to the artist and the only UK showing of this exhibition.
Johannes Vermeer (1632-75) is world-renowned for his meticulous paintings of Dutch interiors. Considering his current popularity, surprisingly little is known about his early career. He was born the son of an innkeeper and art dealer in 1632 in Delft. Nothing is known for certain about his training but he obviously was familiar with the latest trends in Dutch and Flemish painting. He produced few works during his career, of which less than forty survive. The National Gallery of Scotland is one of only 17 galleries worldwide that holds a work by Vermeer in its collection. The three paintings on show in this exhibition are strikingly different from his later works which concentrate almost exclusively on domestic interiors. These paintings, created before the artist was 25, suggest a tantalising experimental phase in his early career as he explored classical and biblical subjects. Nonetheless, each picture reveals his fascination with light and colour that so captivates audiences today.
The first painting, Diana and her Nymphs, is thought to have been created soon after Vermeer had entered the painters’ guild in 1653. It is a serene and intimate painting, showing the goddess Diana and her companions in a wooded landscape. Recent examination has shown that the blue sky that once covered the upper right of the painting contains pigments that were only introduced after Vermeer’s death and so could not have been painted by the artist himself. Following meticulous research into the paint layers, it was decided to over-paint this part in a dark tone that matches the foliage of the adjacent trees.
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, from the National Gallery of Scotland’s collection, is the largest of Vermeer’s surviving works and possibly dates from slightly later than Diana and her Nymphs. The subject is taken from St Luke’s gospel and can perhaps be linked to Vermeer’s conversion to Catholicism in 1653. This painting may have been intended as a gift for his mother-in-law or for a clandestine Catholic church. The signature on the painting was not found until 1901 and the re-discovery of this early Vermeer sparked considerable attention in Dutch and British newspapers. It was subsequently bought by the wealthy Scottish collector W. A. Coats and after his death presented in his memory by his sons to the National Gallery of Scotland in 1927.
The last of the three paintings featuring in this exhibition is The Procuress, a brothel scene signed and dated 1656. The painting’s title, which was not given to this work until the mid-19th century, refers to the older woman who has arranged the meeting between the man and the young woman. The Procuress marks two significant shifts in the artists work: his move towards painting ‘genre scenes’, which show figures in everyday activities, and the development towards his mature style, rendering shapes in smooth and colourful hues of light and shade. Recent cleaning has revealed the magnificent vibrant colours and delicate treatment of the different surfaces and materials in this arresting picture.
This exhibition has successfully toured to the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, and the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, in Dresden and has received much critical acclaim, being described as “a captivating exhibition”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 Sept 2010,
The Young Vermeer is a collaboration between the National Gallery of Scotland, the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, and the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.
For further information and images please contact the National Galleries of Scotland’s press office on 0131 624 6325/6247/6314/6332 or [email protected].
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Exhibition Tour
12 May – 22 August 2010 The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague
3 September – 28 November 2010 Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
8 December 2010 – 13 March 2011 National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
IMPRESSIONIST GARDENS DELIGHTS 100, 000 VISITORS
The National Galleries of Scotland is delighted to announce that the blockbuster exhibition Impressionist Gardens has ended its hugely successful run on a high note, with total visitor figures of nearly 100,000. Extended opening hours allowed almost 17,000 people to see the exhibition in its final week at the National Gallery Complex in Edinburgh, and the show attracted an average daily attendance of 1,250 over its 78-day run, from 31 July to 17 October. In total, there were 99,509 ticketed visitors to Impressionist Gardens, making this ground-breaking exhibition the third most successful in the Galleries’ history. The exhibition has comfortably surpassed its ambitious target of 80,000 visitors and the entire print run of the catalogue has sold out.
Impressionist Gardens brought together around 100 spectacular paintings, by artists such Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Manet and Sisley, from collections around the world, and was the first ever to be devoted to this fascinating subject. The exhibition was sponsored by BNY Mellon, and jointly organised with Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, where it will open in November. It was curated by Michael Clarke, Director of the National Gallery of Scotland and organiser of many exhibitions on Impressionism, and Dr Clare Willsdon, Reader in History of Art at the University of Glasgow and a world expert on the subject.
Commenting on the exhibition’s success, Michael Clarke said: “We are thrilled by the success of this international hit show which was created entirely here in Scotland.”
John Leighton Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland added: “We are absolutely delighted by the way that the public has responded so enthusiastically to this show. The high volume of visitors to ambitious exhibitions such as The Glasgow Boys at Kelvingrove and Impressionist Gardens here is not only a sign of a vibrant cultural life in this country it is also good news for our economy at a time when we must do all we can to boost revenues from tourism.”
ENDS
For further information and images, please call the Press Office
on 0131 624 6325/ 6314
[email protected]
www.nationalgalleries.org
NOTES TO EDITORS
Throughout its 225 year history, BNY Mellon has supported non-profit organisations addressing cultural awareness and access, economic vitality, education and urgent human needs. It is proud to have worked with many of the world’s leading art, cultural and philanthropic institutions, and to have supported them with charitable investments, sponsorships and through the volunteer efforts of our employees.
BNY Mellon is the corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. BNY Mellon is a global financial services company focused on helping clients manage and service their financial assets, operating in 34 countries and serving more than 100 markets. BNY Mellon is a leading provider of financial services for institutions, corporations and high-net-worth individuals, providing superior asset management and wealth management, asset servicing, issuer services, clearing services and treasury services through a worldwide client-focused team. It has $22.4 trillion in assets under custody and administration, $1.1 trillion in assets under management, services $11.8 trillion in outstanding debt and processes global payments averaging $1.5 trillion per day.
OPENING HOURS EXTENDED FOR BLOCKBUSTER IMPRESSIONISM SHOW
With a week to go before the hugely popular exhibition Impressionist Gardens draws to a close, the National Galleries of Scotland is delighted to announce that it will be extending its opening hours, for visitors hoping to grab a last chance to see this ground-breaking show. The gallery will open from 10am until 6pm from Monday to Wednesday and on Sunday, 7pm on Thursday and 8pm on Friday and Saturday.
Over the last two months Impressionist Gardens has drawn crowds of around 1000 visitors per day on average, with attendances over recent weekends surpassing even the busiest period of the Edinburgh Festival. Edinburgh is the only UK venue for this fascinating exhibition, which has been organised by the NGS and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, and the visitor figures are expected to approach the ambitious target of 80,000 this weekend, ahead of the final week. If the exhibition attracts more than 84,000 visitors it will be the third most popular exhibition in the last 25 years.
John Leighton Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland commented: “We are absolutely delighted by the way that the public has responded so enthusiastically to this show; The high volume of visitors to ambitious exhibitions such as the Glasgow Boys at Kelvingrove and Impressionist Gardens here is not only a sign of a vibrant cultural life in this country it is also good news for our economy at a time when we must do all we can to boost revenues from tourism.”
This major international exhibition of around 100 works is sponsored by BNY Mellon and is the first ever to be devoted to this fascinating subject, with spectacular loans from collections around the world. Impressionist Gardens has been the highlight of the 2010 summer season at the National Gallery Complex, bringing together spectacular paintings by the famous names of Impressionism, including Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Manet and Sisley. Lenders to Impressionist Gardens include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; the Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; Tate, London; and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome.
Impressionist Gardens is curated by Michael Clarke, Director of the National Gallery of Scotland and organiser of many exhibitions on Impressionism, and Dr Clare Willsdon, Reader in History of Art at the University of Glasgow and a world expert on the subject.
ENDS
For further information and images, please call the Press Office
on 0131 624 6325/ 6314
[email protected]
www.nationalgalleries.org
NOTES TO EDITORS
Throughout its 225 year history, BNY Mellon has supported non-profit organisations addressing cultural awareness and access, economic vitality, education and urgent human needs. It is proud to have worked with many of the world’s leading art, cultural and philanthropic institutions, and to have supported them with charitable investments, sponsorships and through the volunteer efforts of our employees.
BNY Mellon is the corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. BNY Mellon is a global financial services company focused on helping clients manage and service their financial assets, operating in 34 countries and serving more than 100 markets. BNY Mellon is a leading provider of financial services for institutions, corporations and high-net-worth individuals, providing superior asset management and wealth management, asset servicing, issuer services, clearing services and treasury services through a worldwide client-focused team. It has $22.4 trillion in assets under custody and administration, $1.1 trillion in assets under management, services $11.8 trillion in outstanding debt and processes global payments averaging $1.5 trillion per day.
THIRD SUCCESSFUL YEAR OF ARTIST ROOMS
The Art Fund grants funding for 2011 tour
23 ROOMS will go on show at venues across the UK in 2011
Building on the outstanding successes of the ARTIST ROOMS tours in 2009 and 2010, which have seen over 60% of the ARTIST ROOMS Collection shown at institutions across the UK in the first two years, with 377 works lent in 2010 alone, National Galleries of Scotland and Tate are delighted to announce plans for 2011. The tour in 2011 will include venues in Dumfries, Hull, Kendal, Kilmarnock, Leeds, Llandudno and Orkney and 23 ROOMS will open in that year. The Art Fund, the national fundraising charity for works of art, also announced today that, for the third year running, it is sponsoring the UK tour with funding of £250,000 including funds set aside for regional galleries to spend on promotional, community and educational activities.
Nineteen venues will show ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions and displays in the new programme for 2011 from the collection created by Anthony d’Offay and acquired by the nation in February 2008. A further two venues will show Ed Ruscha as part of the Highland tour of this artist’s work which began in 2010. ARTIST ROOMS On Tour with the Art Fund and supported by the Scottish Government has been devised to enable this collection held by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, to reach and inspire new audiences across the country, particularly young people.
Highlights of the 2011 tour will include:
• A Damien Hirst ARTIST ROOMS display at Leeds Art Gallery, in Hirst’s home town and place of study. This will be the first time Hirst’s work has been shown in a major display in Leeds and will include his seminal piece Away from the Flock 1994
• Ed Ruscha’s The Music from the Balconies 1984, a major oil painting given to ARTIST ROOMS by the artist in 2009, will be included in an extended exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery. This work has never before been seen in the UK outside London.
• Major Warhol exhibitions will go on show at venues in the south of England. At Southampton City Art Gallery, for the first time, all of the paintings by Warhol in the ARTIST ROOMS collection will be shown together while Warhol’s film and photography works will be shown simultaneously at Southampton University’s John Hansard Gallery. Warhol’s practice will also be the subject of a significant show at The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill which will feature additional loans alongside key works from ARTIST ROOMS.
• A selection from Anthony d'Offay's long loan to ARTIST ROOMS of 177 photographs by the master photographer August Sander will go on display at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh, providing an opportunity for an increasingly wide audience to view his extraordinary works
The ARTIST ROOMS tours are estimated to have reached around 12 million people nationally, including those in London and Edinburgh. Outside the Capitals, ARTIST ROOMS will have been seen by the end of the second year of the tour by over one million people, from Thurso to Bexhill, Eastbourne to Helmsdale and from Llandudno to Stornoway. And by the end of the third year, 70 ARTIST ROOMS will have been shown across the UK, the work of 28 artists will have been shown and 39 venues, including Tate and National Galleries of Scotland will have taken part. A total of 372 works went on tour in 2009 with a further 377 lent in 2010. Works will travel in 2011 to six venues participating in the tour for the first time ensuring the collection will continue to reach new geographical areas and audiences. Six of the venues in 2011 being announced today have shown ARTIST ROOMS in previous tours, thereby continuing to build a network for contemporary-art audiences locally.
Individual ARTIST ROOMS which have proved especially popular have included, Beuys at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow in 2010 which attracted over 37,000 visitors, Beuys at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill in 2009 with 56,000 visitors, Warhol at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 2009 with 87,000 visitors, Diane Arbus at the National Museum in Cardiff in 2009 with over 33,000 visitors, Diane Arbus at Nottingham Contemporary in 2010 with approximately 64,000 visitors, Ron Mueck at Manchester Art Gallery in 2010 with 66,000 visitors and Andy Warhol at Perth Museum and Art Gallery attracting over 50,000 visitors in the first four months. The collection has also been seen in more remote parts of the country including the Pier Art Centre in Orkney with Bill Viola attracting over 14,000 and An Lanntair in Stornoway attracting around 10,000 to the Ian Hamilton Finlay ARTIST ROOMS exhibition in the last month.
The full 2011 ARTIST ROOMS tour will be as follows:
Aberdeen Art Gallery
Diane Arbus - 5 February - 9 April 2011
The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney
Alex Katz and Cy Twombly - 26 March – 4 June 2011
Southampton City Art Gallery and
John Hansard Gallery, Southampton
Andy Warhol - 27 March - 26 June 2011
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries
Vija Celmins - 21 May – 31 July 2011
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Ed Ruscha - 28 May – 29 October 2011
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
Francesca Woodman - 11 June - 23 October 2011
Leeds Art Gallery
Damien Hirst - July – September 2011
Dick Institute, East Ayrshire Council, Kilmarnock
Bill Viola - 3 September - 24 December 2011
The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea
Andy Warhol - 24 September 2011 – 8 January 2012
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Lakeland Arts Trust, Kendal
Richard Long - October – December 2011
National Museum Cardiff
Joseph Beuys - 22 October 2011 - 15 January 2012
Mostyn, Llandudno
Anselm Kiefer – 26 November 2011 – 10 March 2012
Continuing into 2011 will be the Ed Ruscha ARTIST ROOMS Highland tour that began in 2010 at Inverness Museum & Art Gallery:
Swanson Gallery, Thurso
Ed Ruscha - 15 January - 26 February 2011
Timespan in Helmsdale
Ed Ruscha - 5 March - 16 April 2011
ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions in 2011 at National Galleries of Scotland and Tate galleries will include:
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Jeff Koons - February – June 2011
Dean Gallery, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
August Sander - February – June 2011
Tate Modern, London
Diane Arbus, Joseph Beuys, Jenny Holzer - spring 2011 - spring 2012
Tate Britain, London
artist to be confirmed - September 2011 - April 2012
Tate Liverpool
Robert Therrien - 24 June - 16 October 2011
Tate St Ives
Agnes Martin - 14 May - 25 September 2011
To find out more information about ARTIST ROOMS on Tour please visit www.artfund.org/artistrooms. To see the full ARTIST ROOMS collection please visit www.tate.org.uk/artistrooms and www.nationalgalleries.org/artistrooms
For further information
Ruth Findlay, Senior Press Officer, Tate
Tel: 020 7887 4940 Email: [email protected]
Patricia Convery, Head of Press and Marketing, National Galleries of Scotland
Tel: 0131 624 6325 Email: [email protected]
Lizzie Bloom, Press and Campaigns Manager, the Art Fund
Tel: 020 72254804 Email: [email protected]
For 2011 tour announcement images, contact [email protected]
Notes to editors
The Art Fund is the UK’s national fundraising charity for works of art. We believe that everyone should have access to great art and that by bringing together the contributions of all our members and supporters, we can play a part in enriching the range, quality and understanding of art for all to experience. We campaign, fundraise and give money to help museums and galleries buy and show art, and we promote its enjoyment through our events and membership scheme. Recent grant highlights include leading the £3.3 million campaign to save the Staffordshire Hoard, and helping to buy a new commission, Antony Gormley’s 6 Times, for the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. We don’t receive government funding; our members and supporters make our work possible. For more information, contact the Press Office on 020 7225 4888 or visit www.artfund.org
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART LAUNCHES 2011 PUBLIC PROGRAMME
Following on from the success of the 50th anniversary celebrations, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is delighted to announce the key components of the forthcoming public programme for 2011. There are three major exhibitions planned:
ELIZABETH BLACKADDER
National Gallery Complex
2 July – 23 October 2011
The major summer exhibition at the National Gallery Complex in 2011 will be devoted to the art of Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, organised in honour of the artist’s 80th birthday. Elizabeth Blackadder’s first exhibition was held at the 57 Gallery in Edinburgh in 1959; she has since become celebrated for her paintings, watercolours and drawings, and was the first woman artist to be elected to both the Royal Academy and Royal Scottish Academy
Born in Falkirk, Elizabeth Blackadder studied at Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art. She knew well the Scottish painters William Gillies, William MacTaggart and Anne Redpath, and like them has developed an art based on her observations of the world. Blackadder has a thirst for travel: she went to Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy early in her career and in more recent years has made several visits to Japan. Such experiences, as well as subject matter closer to home - in particular the plant forms and animals she loves to draw and paint – have provided her with an endlessly diverse range of subjects which she explores through many media. Blackadder’s talent lies in her deeply analytical eye, which allows her to see the underlying structure, design and colour harmony in both the exotic and the everyday. From this she develops highly original works of art that seem to breathe with their own life. This exhibition will be a rare chance to experience a retrospective of work by one of this country’s best loved and most active artists.
TONY CRAGG
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
30 July – 6 November 2011
Born in 1949, Tony Cragg is one of the most celebrated and popular sculptors alive. He was born in Liverpool and moved around Britain with his parents (he spent two years living in Lossiemouth). His first job was working as a laboratory technician; only later did he study art, entering the Royal College of Art in 1973. His background in laboratory work has had an enormous impact on his work, which fuses art and science in an incredibly rich and arresting way. His first exhibition was held at the Lisson Gallery in 1979, where he still exhibits.
Cragg moved with his German wife to Wuppertal, Germany, in 1977; he has remained there ever since. Basing himself in Germany has meant that Cragg’s career has developed in unusual ways. He has a huge international following in Europe (a solo exhibition opens at the Louvre in Paris in spring 2011) and America but his profile in Britain is probably not as high as contemporaries such as Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor. He won the Turner Prize in 1988 and the Praemium Imperiale in 2007 yet he has never had a major museum exhibition in London; his most important shows in Britain are retrospectives at Tramway Glasgow 1992 and Tate Liverpool 2000 – the latter being his last major exhibition in Britain.
Cragg works from a huge studio (a former armaments factory) in Wuppertal. He is Co-director of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Working in an astonishing variety of styles and materials, including bronze, glass, plaster, wood, fibreglass, and plastics, he has become one of the most successful and respected artists working anywhere in the world today.
The exhibition will fill the whole ground floor of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Concentrating on work made in the last ten years, it nonetheless includes earlier work, to give the exhibition a retrospective character.
F. C. B. CADELL
Dean Gallery
15 October 2011 – 18 March 2012
In the Autumn of 2011 the National Galleries of Scotland will stage the first of its Scottish Colourists Series with a retrospective of the work of FCB Cadell. Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937) is one of the four artists popularly known as ‘The Scottish Colourists’ (the others being J. D. Fergusson, G. L. Hunter and S. J. Peploe). He was born in Edinburgh, where he lived for most of his life, and studied in Paris and Munich. Cadell is celebrated for his stylish portrayals of Edinburgh New Town interiors and the elegant society that occupied them, his vibrantly coloured, daringly simplified still lives of the 1920s and for his evocative landscapes of the west of Scotland and the south of France. This is the first retrospective exhibition of his work ever mounted at a public gallery and will consist of approximately 70 paintings, from public and private collections. It will be accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue based on new research.
For further information and images please contact the National Galleries of Scotland press office on 0131 624 6325 or [email protected].
SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT APPOINTS NEW TRUSTEES TO THE BOARD OF THE NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND
Fiona Hyslop, the Minister for Europe, External Affairs and Culture today announced the appointment of three new members – Lesley Knox, Nicky Wilson and Professor Ian Howard – to the Board of Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland.
Speaking of the appointments, Ben Thomson, Chairman of the Trustees said, “We welcome Leslie, Ian and Nicky to the board and look forward to their contributions at this exciting time for the Gallery particularly with the reopening of the Portrait Gallery next year.”
Lesley Knox
Lesley Knox was brought up in Edinburgh and as well as a career in business has, for a number of years , been involved with organisations concerned with fine arts, culture and heritage. She was a Governor of the Museum of London for 9 years and prior to that for 5 years Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Federation of British Artists. She is currently Chairman of DDL, the charitable company formed to build a new design centre in Dundee to provide, in partnership with the V & A museum, a showcase for the best in international design. She has also been a Member of the Steering Group being carried by George Reid for the National Trust for Scotland.
She is Chairman of the Alliance Trust Plc, a Director of Hays plc and a Director of Grosvenor Group Limited.
Nicky Wilson
Founder and Director of Jupiter Artland Foundation. This is a private collection open to the public containing work by many of today’s leading sculptors including Anthony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and Ian Hamilton Finlay. Jupiter Artland is a charitable foundation and central to it is the provision of educational resources to local children. Nicky was previously Co-Director and Founder of Beautiful Bump skincare products and also worked at WCRS Advertising Agency and LSDC Ayer Advertising and managed accounts including the launch of Orange. She previously won the prestigious year long British School of Rome Sculpture Scholarship, trained at Chelsea School of Art MA (Sculpture) and Camberwell College of Fine Art. She is also a Fruitmarket Gallery board member.
Professor Ian Howard
Professor Ian Howard, MA (Hons) RSA Dr hc is Principal of Edinburgh College of Art. He was formerly Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, University of Dundee and prior to that, a Professor in the School of Fine Art there. He was a leading force behind the internationally significant Dundee Contemporary Arts.
He has been a member of the Faculty of Fine Art at the British School in Rome, a visiting professor at many art and design institutions worldwide and in 2007 was given an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Edinburgh and also elected Treasurer of the Royal Scottish Academy. He is a painter and printmaker of international standing and winner of the Chicago Prize 2000.
These appointments will be for four years and will run from October 01, 2010 to September 30, 2014.
All these posts are part-time, attract no remuneration and have a time commitment of ten days per year.
None of the appointees hold any other Scottish Ministerial appointments.
These Ministerial public appointments were made in accordance with the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland’s Code of Practice.
All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees’ political activity within the last 5 years (if there is any to be declared) to be made public. None of the appointees declared any political activity in the last 5 years.
For further information please contact the National Galleries of Scotland Press Office on
0131 624 6247 / 6325 / 6314 / 6332
[email protected]
www.nationalgalleries.org
PHOTOCALL: 11.30am, Thursday 9 September 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
WILLIAM MCTAGGART (1835 – 1910)
11 September – 19 December 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Telephone 0131 624 6200
www.nationalgalleries.org
Admission free
This year marks the centenary of the death of William McTaggart, one of Scotland’s best-loved artists. The National Gallery of Scotland will celebrate his life and work with a small exhibition featuring over 25 stunning watercolours, small oil paintings and compositional studies as well as a selection of rarely seen personal memorabilia.
William McTaggart has long been regarded as one of the most outstanding and innovative Scottish artists. He was the son of a crofter, born near Aros in Kintyre on the west coast of Scotland and, unlike many of his contemporaries, he chose to work almost exclusively in Scotland. His native land was a constant source of inspiration and provided him with a wealth of subject matter – everyday scenes of fishing communities, breathtaking views of the ocean, and sheltered bays along the Scottish coast all feature heavily in his work. His pictures have a strong emotional content linking people with nature, such as children playing in the surf, fishermen battling with storms or emigrants setting sail for America.
Highlights of the exhibition include studies for some of McTaggarts best known oil paintings such as a delicate pencil study for Spring and an atmospheric study in watercolour for Dawn at Sea. Homewards. There will also be a selection of rarely seen personal memorabilia including the artist’s paint palette, brushes, sketchbooks and Royal Scottish Academy medals. Touching photography from the McTaggart family album will also be on display depicting his true inspiration – his family and surroundings.
The exhibition will be complemented by a small display which will examine McTaggart’s early artistic training at Edinburgh College of Art and features rare studies made by McTaggart when he was a young student.
-ENDS-
For further information and images, please call the National Galleries of Scotland Press Office on 0131 624 6247/ 325/ 332/ 314
INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED ARTIST ROBERT THERRIEN DONATES TWO SCULPTURES TO ARTIST ROOMS COLLECTION
The National Galleries of Scotland and Tate are delighted to announce that the internationally renowned American artist, Robert Therrien has very generously given two major sculptures to the ARTIST ROOMS collection. These two seminal pieces, No Title (Beard Cart) (2004) and No Title (Stacked Plates) (2010) will significantly enhance the group of five important works by the artist already featured in the ARTIST ROOMS collection that was created by the collector Anthony d’Offay in 2008. The addition of these two gifts establishes a world-class holding of Therrien’s work that will allow visitors around the UK to explore the artist’s remarkable work in even greater depth.
The two sculptures being given by the artist will shortly go on show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in an extended ARTIST ROOMS display of Therrien’s work that will also feature one of the artist’s best-known installations, the giant No Title (Table and Four Chairs) and a large stainless-steel sculpture not yet seen as part of ARTIST ROOMS, No Title (Oil Can).
The display will form part of phase three of What you see is where you’re at, a dynamic programme of changing displays that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
ARTIST ROOMS is jointly owned by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland and was established through The d’Offay Donation in 2008, with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and Scottish and British Governments. ARTIST ROOMS also includes Robert Therrien’s important room-installation RED ROOM (2000-7) which the artist generously made available especially for the collection. ARTIST ROOMS has the special purpose of inspiring young people all over the country and ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions have been touring galleries and museums nationwide since 2009, thanks to the generous additional support of the Art Fund, and within Scotland, the Scottish Government.
ARTIST ROOMS is an evolving collection, intended to grow over time in order to both extend the representation of existing artists and to introduce the work of younger artists to ensure it remains a dynamic and contemporary collection. Thanks to the continued involvement and support of Anthony d’Offay, ex-officio curator of ARTIST ROOMS, the collection is now being extended in remarkable ways; Robert Therrien is one of a number of artists who are generously donating work to the collection in recognition of its importance within the UK and its significant role in bringing great art into the lives of young people. To date, works have been donated to ARTIST ROOMS by the artist Ed Ruscha and the estate of Ian Hamilton Finlay.
The first of the two sculptures given by Robert Therrien, No Title (Beard Cart) (2004), is one of a series of works in which the artist has incorporated beards of various sizes. This apparently unlikely subject recalls modes of disguise, as well as the bearded men of folklore and children’s stories. The most recent work, No Title (Stacked Plates) (2010), comprises twenty giant beige-coloured plates and bowls stacked to form a precarious tower over two metres high. The plates are modelled on a style of kitchenware found in American roadside diners in the first part of the twentieth century, evoking nostalgia for a lost era, while their larger than life size transforms them into an abstracted sculpture.
Born in Chicago, Robert Therrien grew up in San Francisco and moved to Los Angeles in 1971 where he still lives and works. In the early 1980s he became known for making objects with simple recognizable shapes such as pitchers, coffins and doors, created in a variety of media including copper, wood and bronze. He is renowned for transforming everyday things into extraordinary sculptures, often by increasing their scale many times. These larger than life works suggest a world of fairy tales and childhood games and provoke an interaction between the viewer, the object and the environment.
Therrien’s work has often been associated with Pop art. It has also been related to the legacy of Surrealism in the evocation of the uncanny and extraordinary. However, his ability to reveal surprising perspectives and to convey an array of moods, from the haunting to the playful, defy such definitions and he remains one of the most compelling artists working today.
The display of Robert Therrien’s work featuring the two gifts will be on show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh from 24 July 2010 until early 2011.
For further information and images please contact the National Galleries of Scotland’s press office on 0131 624 6325/6247/6314/6332 or [email protected].
IMPRESSIONIST GARDENS
31 July to 17 October 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Telephone 0131 6246 6200; recorded information 0131 332 2266
www.nationalgalleries.org
Sponsored by BNY Mellon
Admission £10/£7
Exhibition organised by the National Galleries of Scotland
and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Part of the Edinburgh Art Festival
The highlight of the 2010 summer season at the National Gallery Complex will be a ground-breaking exhibition on the subject of paintings of Impressionist Gardens. This major international exhibition of around 100 works is sponsored by BNY Mellon and is the first ever to be devoted to this fascinating subject, with spectacular loans from collections around the world. The famous names of Impressionism will be well represented, with fine examples by Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Manet and Sisley. In addition, the exhibition will examine the continued significance of the impressionist garden to the generation of artists working immediately after the Impressionists, such as Cézanne and Pierre Bonnard. Lenders to Impressionist Gardens, which has been organised in partnership with the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, will include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; the Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; Tate, London; and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. This will be the only UK showing.
Gardens and flowers were a constant theme in impressionist painting and inspired these great artists to produce some of their most beautiful and memorable paintings. Claude Monet is perhaps the best known in this respect, for the garden he created at Giverny in rural Normandy, with its celebrated water lily ponds. All the Impressionists, however, featured gardens in their work, ranging from Sisley’s ordered views of market gardens at Louveciennes to the wild profusion of Renoir’s semi-cultivated garden, which adjoined his studio in Montmartre, as seen in his Woman with Parasol in a Garden (1875-6).
This exhibition will trace the origins of the impressionist garden, beginning with examples by the great school of early 19th-century flower painters at Lyons and looking at such important precursors as Delacroix and Corot, before moving on to the ambitious central section of the show which will feature many outstanding paintings by the Impressionists themselves. A final section will examine the ‘spread’ of the impressionist garden in the late 19th and early 20th century. European and American artists will feature in this section and will include Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Gustav Klimt and John Singer Sargent.
The birth of Impressionism in France coincided with an explosion of enthusiasm for gardening. A massive programme of urban renewal had seen Paris transformed, under the Second Empire, into a city of gardens. Purpose-built nurseries and greenhouses supplied vast quantities of bedding plants to the city’s public parks, which were filled with rare and exotic species of flowers and shrubs, imported from France’s colonial possessions and beyond.
To the Impressionists, who drew their subject matter exclusively from modern life, the public spaces of Paris became a natural focus of their activities (highlights of the exhibition will include two of Monet’s paintings of the Parc Monceau, as well as Pissarro’s The Public Garden at Pontoise, (1874)). In a conscious attempt to regenerate French art, the Impressionists rejected the historical narratives, mythological scenes and religious themes of academic painting in favour of an art of the senses, concerned with capturing the flux and transience of experience. Working outdoors, they treated gardens as their ‘studio’, a perfect setting to observe figures in the open air, or to register the variations in colour, light and atmosphere produced by the ever-changing weather and passing seasons. For the Impressionists, the garden represented a complex and infinitely varied motif, which had become, for the first time in art history, a subject in its own right – an inspiration for art, rather than merely a useful backdrop or setting.
Hand-in-hand with the proliferation of public gardens, the 19th century saw an enormous growth of interest in gardening among the middle classes, who had left the crowded city centres to live in houses with gardens in the suburbs. By the 1860s, growing and enjoying flowers in a jardin d’agrément (decorative or leisure garden) had become a favourite pastime in France, and horticultural societies, exhibitions and publications abounded. Given the central importance of gardens their work it is hardly surprising that the Impressionists became enthusiastic adherents of this new cult.
In private gardens, and in particular the gardens which they planted and tended themselves (see Monet’s The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias) (1873); and The Garden at Vétheuil (1881)), Impressionists painted with great freedom to experiment with new techniques and approaches. This was not only true artistically but also horticulturally, with the layout and character of the garden being carefully devised or selected by the artist to suit his particular aesthetic needs. For Monet the distinction between gardening and painting would eventually dissolve, and he went so far as to claim that in establishing the garden at Giverny he had created his ‘most beautiful work of art’.
For an art ‘based on sensations’, as Pissarro termed it, decorative flowers and shrubs, with their infinitely varied colours and scents, had an obvious appeal. However, a number of the Impressionists – Pissarro, Sisley and Morisot in particular – championed the beauty of the more humble, productive garden, drawing inspiration from small vegetable, market and orchard gardens in the villages and towns around Paris (see Pissarro’s Kitchen Gardens at L’Hermitage, Pontoise (1874) and Sisley’s The Fields of the same year).
These paintings also reveal an undercurrent of association, and even symbolism, which is often overlooked in relation to Impressionism, and which will be examined in Impressionist Gardens. Pissarro’s paintings of peasant gardens were derided by some critics for their lowly subject matter, but significantly they are strongly suggestive of the democratic, Republican and utopian sympathies that often motivated the Impressionists. They also represent, in part, an unsentimental reflection upon the loss of a working relationship with the soil enjoyed by earlier generations, a fundamental shift in lifestyle which perhaps explains the explosion of interest in gardening in general.
The Impressionists deployed other powerfully resonant motifs in their garden imagery. With young children to bring up, artists such as Monet or Morisot had even greater cause to use their gardens as motifs in the 1870s and 80s (see Morisot’s Child amongst the Hollyhocks (1881), and Monet’s The Artist’s House at Argenteuil (1873)). In addition, the theme of the family was highly topical in France in these years, following the turbulent events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. Families, mothers and children, who appear frequently in paintings of impressionist gardens, were strongly identified with an optimistic vision of the future, and were closely associated with gardens themselves, the cultivation of which was seen as a tangible means to ‘turn swords into ploughshares’.
In some instances, meaning or association was triggered by the inclusion of plants or flowers that carried a specific symbolism. The curators of Impressionist Gardens have worked closely with colleagues at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on a careful exploration of the paintings in the show, identifying, where possible, the specific plants that are depicted. This invaluable and uniquely revealing research, which has been undertaken by David Mitchell, curator at RBGE, has also helped to demonstrate the high level of horticultural knowledge and expertise developed by some of the Impressionists.
From the early 1880s, Impressionism underwent substantial changes and in turn acted as a springboard for new styles and approaches by artists both in France and beyond. The final section of Impressionist Gardens will consider some of the ways these found expression in – and were given impetus by – garden motifs. Impressionism’s increasing proximity to Symbolism will be illustrated by works such as Bonnard’s The Large Garden (1895-6) and the The Fragrant Air (1894) by the Belgian artist Léon Frédéric; Van Gogh’s response to Impressionism’s expressive and decorative use of colour can be seen in his paintings Garden with Path (1888) and Undergrowth (1889); and the influence of Seurat’s Neo-Impressionism (which emerged at the final Impressionist group exhibition in 1886) can be seen in the styles developed by Henri Martin and Theo Van Rysselberghe in Belgium, and Gustav Klimt in Austria (see Klimt’s stunning Italian Garden Landscape (1913)). This section of the show will also re-unite three paintings included in Monet’s hugely successful Waterscapes exhibition, held in Paris in 1909, in which his now-famous depictions of the water lily ponds at Giverny were first shown.
Impressionist Gardens is being curated by Michael Clarke, Director of the National Gallery of Scotland and organiser of many exhibitions on Impressionism, and Dr Clare Willsdon, Reader in History of Art at the University of Glasgow and a world expert on the subject. In addition to providing a dazzling array of world-class masterpieces, the exhibition will demonstrate how the Impressionists’ passionate interest in gardening gave rise to some of their most memorable and significant paintings, and in doing so will offer a fascinating insight into a very significant chapter in the history of horticulture. It will therefore have a twin appeal, both to those who love great art and to the great army of gardening enthusiasts everywhere. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, priced £14.95.
Impressionist Gardens is generously sponsored by BNY Mellon. This is the first time that BNY Mellon, which recently sponsored The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and his Letters at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, has supported the National Galleries of Scotland.
‘Edinburgh is one of our businesses’ key centres and it is a special privilege to support this landmark project and the National Galleries of Scotland, whose championing of public access and education is very much in tune with the key principles that inform our own international programme of arts sponsorship,’ said Woody Kerr, Vice-Chairman of Europe at BNY Mellon. 'I have no doubt that this remarkable exhibition will prove a huge success for both the National Galleries and the city of Edinburgh itself.'
Commenting on the sponsorship, John Leighton, Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland, said, ‘Impressionist Gardens will be the big festival exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland this year, and a highlight of our summer season. This is the first time that this fascinating subject has been the focus of a major exhibition and we are delighted to have secured some spectacular loans from collections around the world. To organise an exhibition on this scale would have been almost impossible without the generous support we have received from BNY Mellon, and we are extremely grateful to them for helping us to stage this landmark show.’
ENDS
For further information and images, please call the Press Office
on 0131 624 6247/ 325/ 332/ 314
[email protected]
www.nationalgalleries.org
NOTES TO EDITORS
BNY Mellon is a global financial services company focused on helping clients manage and service their financial assets, operating in 36 countries and serving more than 100 markets. BNY Mellon is a leading provider of financial services for institutions, corporations and high-net-worth individuals, providing superior asset management and wealth management, asset servicing, issuer services, clearing services and treasury services through a worldwide client-focused team. It has $21.8 trillion in assets under custody and administration and $1.0 trillion in assets under management, services $11.6 trillion in outstanding debt and processes global payments averaging $1.5 trillion per day. BNY Mellon is the corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. Additional information is available at www.bnymellon.com.
Throughout its 225 year history, BNY Mellon has supported non-profit organisations addressing cultural awareness and access, economic vitality, education and urgent human needs. It is proud to have worked with many of the world’s leading art, cultural and philanthropic institutions, and to have supported them with charitable investments, sponsorships and through the volunteer efforts of our employees.
ANOTHER WORLD
DALÍ, MAGRITTE, MIRÓ AND THE SURREALISTS
10 July 2010 - 9 January 2011
DEAN GALLERY, 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
Admission £7 (£5 concessions)
Press view - Friday 9 July 2010, 11.30am – 1pm
A comprehensive survey of surrealist art, featuring European and British masterpieces, will be the major summer exhibition at the Dean Gallery in 2010. Another World will offer a fascinating overview of arguably the most important art movement of the twentieth century featuring works by internationally renowned artists such as Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró, alongside their British counterparts including John Armstrong, Edward Wadsworth, Eileen Agar, and Ithell Colquhoun. This is the only showing of this major exhibition which will feature loans from public and private collections and will be the centrepiece of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Surrealism is the name given to an art movement which began in Paris in the 1920s and soon spread around the globe. Meaning ‘beyond realism’, the term refers to the world of dreams, nightmares, the irrational and the strange. Today Surrealism has become part of our daily visual language, infiltrating every aspect of art, design and advertising. Befitting an art movement which championed the irrational, Another World will be displayed in an unusual and exciting manner. Coloured walls will be densely hung alongside display cases filled with the Gallery’s extensive collection of books and manuscripts. In this dynamic setting visitors will be able to experience the visceral intensity of surrealist art shown as it was originally intended.
The beginnings of Surrealism lie in Dada, a radical artistic and literary movement that was a direct reaction against the horrors of the First World War. Dada artists took an anti-establishment attitude and favoured the irrational and the absurd. This is explored in the opening room of the exhibition including an eye-catching sculpture comprised entirely of wooden coat hangers by Man Ray, alongside Marcel Duchamp’s iconic Fountain on loan from the Tate.
After the First World War, Paris became a melting pot for artists and writers, and between 1919 and 1922, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Duchamp and Ernst all moved to the city. André Breton emerged as the leader, shifting Dada's focus away from its love of anarchy and nonsense, and towards more intellectual pursuits. By 1922, Breton was using Apollinaire's term ‘surrealist’ and overseeing sessions involving hypnosis, automatic writing, and the exploration of dreams and the unconscious. This portion of the exhibition includes spectacular paintings such as René Magritte’s Threatening Weather (Le Temps menaçant) (1929) and Yves Tanguy’s Never Again (Plus Jamais) (1939) complimented by a wealth of archival material including letters, sketches, publications and photography.
Although Surrealism had become a potent force in many countries by the 1930s, in Britain interest was only just beginning to stir. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a small band of British artists, including Paul Nash, John Banting, Edward Wadsworth and John Armstrong, were responding to Continental Surrealism. A key figure in British Surrealism was Roland Penrose, whose collection was acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1995 and which is included in its totality in the exhibition. This display also includes significant work by female British Surrealists such as beautiful large paintings by Ithell Colquhoun Gouffres Amers (1939) and Rivieres Tièdes (1939) and intricate collages and sculpture by Eileen Agar.
The exhibition ends with an examination of the movement as it progressed towards abstraction in the 1940s and 1950s. Works on display include Birth (1941) by Jackson Pollock and Jingling Space (1950) by Alan Davie alongside sculptures such as St Sebastian I (1957) and His Majesty the Wheel (1958 – 1959) by celebrated Scottish artist Eduardo Paolozzi.
The Surrealist collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA) is one of the largest anywhere in the world and rivals those found in New York, Paris, Chicago and London. As well as containing dozens of famous paintings and sculptures, it also includes a substantial number of prints, archival material, periodicals, books, letters and other publications. Another World will explore this collection in its entirety and will include several print portfolios which have never been shown before by artists such as Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy. The holdings of surrealist art are particularly rich thanks to two major acquisitions: in 1995 the SNGMA purchased part of the collection formed by the English surrealist artist Roland Penrose; and that same year, Gabrielle Keiller bequeathed her magnificent collection to the Gallery.
Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art, said: ‘The 50th anniversary of the Gallery provides us with a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our world-famous collection of surrealist art. The collection contains over sixty paintings, including masterpieces by artists such as Dalí, Miró and Picasso, as well as four of Magritte’s best paintings, collages and prints by Max Ernst, major sculptures by artists including Giacometti and Duchamp, and a vast collection of rare and beautiful, illustrated books. This will be the first time the entire collection will have been shown together, and will occupy the whole of the Dean Gallery. We have also negotiated some outstanding loans, to produce a really comprehensive and stunning exhibition.’
ENDS
For further information and images, please call the Press Office on 0131 624 6247/ 325/ 332/ 314
[email protected]
www.nationalgalleries.org
NOTES TO EDITORS
Another World catalogue
Published by: National Galleries of Scotland
This handsome catalogue provides a rich survey of the world-class Dada and Surrealism collection at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Over 150 works are illustrated, ranging from celebrated paintings by Dalí, Miró and Magritte, to the extraordinary but little-known works of the British surrealists. With accessible and engaging text by Senior Curator Patrick Elliott, this book will appeal to the Surrealist expert and newcomer alike.
Richard Wright’s most complex and ambitious painting to date unveiled
The most complex and ambitious painting to date by 2009 Turner prize-winner, Richard Wright, was unveiled today, 30 June 2010. One of three major artworks commissioned by the Edinburgh Art Festival with support from the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund, the painting is located in the west stairwell of the Dean Orphan Hospital, now the Dean Gallery, which is part of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The striking black on white design was created in an intensive four-week period.
Thomas Hamilton’s design for the Dean Orphan Hospital, which was completed in the early 1830s, is a curious mix of neo-classical and baroque features. The inward inclination of the windows makes it look as if the towers are falling in on themselves and the exaggerated height of the banisters gives an Alice-in-Wonderland effect to the stairwells. It is almost as if they had been built for giants. Wright’s initial approach to work was to follow a natural instinct towards simplicity, but as the painting developed it was, as he says, 'deflected by the architecture, and the work turned out to be very complicated.'
'This building is strikingly solid as a piece of architecture,' he adds, 'but it also has these extraordinary, beautiful details and little hidden elements, and it has this melancholic history as well, which has crept into my thinking.'
'I have been aware that for me the work is as much for the people who were here before, as for the people who may come here in the future. Although I wouldn’t want to overload that idea by suggesting some kind of narrative, or that the work should be understood in a particular way, those aspects have definitely been occurring to me as I thought about this building over the last month, as I have got to know it more.'
The work is at once a remarkable addition to the space, but also so much part of the fabric of the building on to which it is painted,
'I like the way that work is as ignorable as it is interesting - the idea that the work might have this sort of abandoned quality,' says Wright. 'You may almost glance upon it absent-mindedly - you might not even register that it is there - and that sort of daydream space interests me.'
Describing his approach to making the painting, Wright adds:
'I did a lot of drawings for this work - a lot of thinking about it. I even made a model, which I never normally do, influenced in part by a sense that the work may remain.'
'I tend to work with certain colours, certain materials in quite an austere or restricted way, and this entire work is made out of two small pots of black paint. That’s something that fascinates me about painting: if you painted this wall solidly with that paint you might only get a very small area, but when you approach that material in a slightly different way, the possibilities are infinite.'
The commission of the painting has been made possible by a grant to the Edinburgh Art Festival from the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund which was established to recognise the exceptional creative talent that exists in Scotland and provide an international platform upon which it can excel. Fiona Hyslop, Minister for Culture and External Affairs said:
'I am delighted that the Scottish Government’s Expo Fund has allowed Richard Wright, last year’s Turner prize-winner, to create a new artwork for visitors to the Dean Gallery, one of our National Galleries in Scotland.
'Richard’s exciting new work will be a highlight of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival, appealing to both Scottish and international audiences.'
Joanne S. Brown, Director of Edinburgh Art Festival, added:
'The Edinburgh Art Festival is an important platform for the capital’s galleries and artists at a time when the city is the focus of both national and international attention. We are delighted that the grant from the Government’s Expo Fund has allowed us to support the commissioning of new work from leading Scottish artists and to underline the pre-eminence of the Edinburgh Art Festival as Scotland’s biggest celebration of the visual arts.'
Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Galleries of Scotland said:
'The Stairwell Project represents one of the most ambitious commissions the Gallery has ever undertaken, by an artist we have long wished to work with and represent on a greater scale.
'Richard Wright is an artist of enormous integrity, and major international standing, and we are delighted that the Dean Gallery is now home to his most complex and ambitious work to date. The Gallery is extremely grateful to the artist and his team for their immense labour of love, and to the Expo Fund, the Scottish Government and the Edinburgh Art Festival for enabling us to bring the best contemporary art to a wider public.'
ENDS
For further information, images and interviews contact:
EAF press office: [email protected] 0779 941 4474
NGS press office: [email protected] 0131 624 6247/ 325/ 332/
Notes for Editors
• The Scottish Government Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund exists to recognise the exceptional creative talent that exists in Scotland and provide an international platform upon which it can excel. It is available to all 12 Edinburgh Festivals to support the development of Scottish-based work. An award of £250,000 was made to the Art Festival in March 2009 for works to be unveiled in 2010.
• Two further EAF Expo commissions will be unveiled this year. Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth’s Staged will be produced by Collective Gallery in the City Observatory from 30 July – 15 August 2010 and Martin Creed’s permanent installation in The Scotsman Steps, curated by the Fruitmarket Gallery, will be unveiled later in the year. Meanwhile four Expo funded performances and interventions will take art out of the gallery and into the streets during this year’s EAF.
• The 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival will run from 29 July – 5 September 2010. Full programme available shortly at www.edinburghartfestival.com
• The National Galleries of Scotland 2010 EAF programme includes What you see is where you’re at: Part 3, with ARTIST ROOMS from Robert Therrien and Gilbert & George at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; Another World, a comprehensive survey of Dada and Surrealist art at the Dean Gallery; and Impressionist Gardens, a major international exhibition of around 100 works, including loans from collections around the world, and the first ever to be devoted to this subject, at the National Gallery Complex on the Mound.
Supported through the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund
NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND
PUBLIC PROGRAMME 2010
Please find below our programme of exhibitions and displays for the coming months. For further information please contact the Press Office on 0131 624 6325 / 314 / 332 / 247, or [email protected]
For general enquiries please call 0131 6246 6200
Information may also be found on our website:
www.nationalgalleries.org
For monthly updates on our news, exhibitions and events join our email bulletin on:
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/mailinglist
NOTES: Current as of May 2010
General opening hours:
National Gallery of Scotland Complex
Monday–Sunday 10am–5pm
Except Thursday 10am–7pm
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and Dean Gallery
Monday–Sunday 10am–5pm
SPECIAL PROJECTS
PORTRAIT OF THE NATION
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, home to the collection of Scottish portraits and the National Photography Collection, is now closed while it undergoes a major refurbishment. This outstanding Grade A building, at the heart of the New Town on Queen Street in Edinburgh, was designed by architect Sir Robert Rowand Anderson to be a celebration of the people of Scotland. Portrait of the Nation will restore this ideal, breathing new life in to its galleries whilst creating much needed new facilities. The collection will be presented in a reinvigorated and more engaging way, illustrating the richness of Scotland’s history and culture with a dynamic and extensive exhibition programme with a new emphasis on photography and Scottish art. The regularly changing exhibitions and increased number of works on display will ensure that there will always be something new to see.
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART 50th ANNIVERSARY
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was the first Gallery in Britain dedicated to collecting modern and contemporary art for the nation. Fifty years on from this pioneering beginning, the Gallery still strives to build on its international reputation through its collection and creative programming.
Throughout 2010 the Gallery will undergo a series of re-hangs to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Titled What you see is where you’re at the displays will change to reveal the richness and range of the collection in a series of rooms which aim to delight and surprise.
ANTONY GORMLEY
6 TIMES
From the 22 June 2010
Work has begun in Edinburgh on an extraordinary multi-part sculptural project by the celebrated British artist Antony Gormley. Commissioned by the National Galleries of Scotland, 6 Times will consist of six life-sized figures positioned between the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the sea. Four of the figures will be sited in the Water of Leith itself, acting as gauges for the height of the river as it swells and recedes. The figure closest to the sea, at Leith Docks, is now in place and installation of the further figures will take place throughout June.
This will be the first time that a work in the National Galleries’ collection has been permanently located across the city of Edinburgh itself. 6 Times has been commissioned with the support of The Art Fund, The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, The Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland, Claire Enders and The Henry Moore Foundation.
RICHARD WRIGHT
THE STAIRWELL PROJECT
From the 29 July 2010
Admission free
The National Galleries of Scotland will soon be home to a major new commission by 2009 Turner Prize-winner Richard Wright. The Stairwell Project sees the internationally acclaimed, Glasgow-based artist make wall-drawings in the stairwell of the Dean Gallery. Made possible by the Scottish Government's Expo Fund, The Stairwell Project will be Wright's largest artwork to date, and will be completed for 29 July, the opening of the 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival.
ARTIST ROOMS
ARTIST ROOMS is a new collection of modern and contemporary art held by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland for the nation. The collection, which comprises more than 730 works, was assembled by Anthony d’Offay, whose London galleries played a key role in the promotion and understanding of twentieth-century art in the UK over a period of more than 30 years. ARTIST ROOMS was established through The d’Offay Donation in 2008, with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Art Fund and the Scottish and British Governments. The guiding principle for the creation of this national resource was the concept of individual rooms devoted to particular artists. ARTIST ROOMS is being shared with museums and galleries throughout the UK thanks to the support of independent charity The Art Fund, and within Scotland, the Scottish Government. This year’s ARTIST ROOMS displays include Diane Arbus, Ian Hamilton-Finlay, Robert Therrien and Gilbert & George. For full details please see below.
EXHIBITIONS
STRANGE ENCOUNTERS: DAVIES, GORDON, BOYCE, COLQUHOUN
27 February – 13 June 2010
DEAN GALLERY, Belford Road, Edinburgh EH4 3DS
Admission free
For centuries, masks have been used to hide identities or create new ones. This display brings together four works by John Davies, Douglas Gordon, Martin Boyce and Robert Colquhoun. Surreal and surprising, they all use the enigmatic appeal of the mask to tell stories which the beholder has to unveil.
WRITING AND ILLUSTRATING FOR CHILDREN
JAMES MAYHEW AND CATHERINE RAYNER
8 March - 4 June 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Admission free
The National Galleries of Scotland presents award-winning work by children’s authors and illustrators Catherine Rayner and James Mayhew in an exhibition of their work. James Mayhew, famous for his Katie and Ella Bella books, and Catherine Rayner, creator of Augustus the Tiger and Harris Finds have also beautifully illustrated two new, exciting trails for children and families to enjoy around the National Gallery Complex. The trails are free to collect in the Gallery.
ARTIST ROOMS: DIANE ARBUS
ON TOUR WITH THE ART FUND SUPPORTED BY THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT
13 March – 13 June 2010
DEAN GALLERY, Belford Road, Edinburgh EH4 3DS
Admission free
ARTIST ROOMS includes one of the most important collections of work by the legendary New York photographer Diane Arbus in the world. It is the first public collection in the UK to hold Arbus’s work and offers audiences nationwide the opportunity of exploring her powerful and moving images at first-hand. The top floor of the Dean Gallery at the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh will feature some seventy black and white photographs by Arbus, including the rare and important portfolio of ten vintage prints: Box of Ten, 1971.
WHAT YOU SEE IS WHERE YOU’RE AT
Part 2 from the 27 March 2010
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART,
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
Admission free
This spring will see the opening of the second major wave of What you see is where you’re at, a programme of dynamic changing displays that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. New rooms will include the first Scottish showing of a key piece by Ian Hamilton Finlay from the ARTIST ROOMS collection, new work by Callum Innes, a showcase for emerging talent from Scotland, and a fresh look at the Scottish Colourists. These eight new displays form part of the innovative re-hang launched in November 2009, and will join works already on show, including specially commissioned outdoor pieces by Nathan Coley and Martin Creed, a spectacular installation by Douglas Gordon, and works from Henri Matisse to Dan Flavin.
CONFRONTATION: CRANACH AND DIX
16 April – 18 July 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Admission free
This display is the first ‘Confrontation’, a new series bringing together old masters and modern art from the National Galleries of Scotland. Lucas Cranach, a highly prolific court painter and contemporary of the great Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, and Otto Dix, a twentieth-century German artist associated with the ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’ (‘New Objectivity’), make a fitting juxtaposition. Their paintings even depict the same subject, a female nude. Dix was greatly inspired by German old masters and imitated their painting technique. Confronting the two masterpieces presents an exciting opportunity to compare artworks separated by more than 400 years and to discover striking similarities and transformations.
DANCE
24 April – 6 June 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Admission free
This vibrant exhibition will explore the fascinating theme of Dance through some of the most famous artworks in the national collection. Dance will bring together fourteen works made in different periods, styles and media, selected from both the National Gallery of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, as well as the ARTIST ROOMS collection. This refreshingly different approach allows the visitor to discover the richness of a subject which has inspired artists since ancient times.
IAN HAMILTON FINLAY: COLLABRATORS AND COLLABORATIONS
25 April – 13 June 2010
DEAN GALLERY, Belford Road, Edinburgh EH4 3 DS
Admission free
Since holding its first solo show by Ian Hamilton Finlay in 1972, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art has amassed a large collection of the artist’s work. The most recent acquisition is the archive of Pamela Campion, Finlay’s sole collaborator in the making of embroideries. This complete documentation of every aspect of their collaboration from 1972 to 2000 includes written instructions, sketches and test pieces. The purchase has been made possible by the generous assistance of a private donor and the Iain Paul Fund. Related material donated to the Gallery’s archive by Sue Finlay, Alan Swerdlow and Jeremy Greenwood and by the estate of the late David Brown will also be shown. Such correspondence, photographs, working notes and printed ephemera provide a unique insight into the artist’s working methods and his interaction with various collaborators.
THE GLASGOW BOYS: DRAWING INSPIRATION
29 May – 5 September 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Admission free
The Glasgow Boys were a loose-knit group of avant-garde artists who were inspired by scenes of rural life made by continental painters at the end of the nineteenth century. Their most innovative and appealing works were made between 1880 and 1895. Drawing Inspiration offers an intimate insight into their working methods and friendships, as well as a look at some of the artists who inspired them. The show features over 30 drawings from the Gallery’s permanent collection and coincides with the landmark Glasgow Boys exhibition which opened on 9 April at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow.
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
BUT WE HAVE THE MUSIC BY SHANTI MASUD
12 June – 18 July 2010
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
Admission free
French director Shanti Masud’s experimental film But We Have The Music presents a series of portraits of people listening and responding to music. Filmed in black–and-white Super 8, the film features a varied soundtrack including music by Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake and The Beach Boys. The film is organised in conjunction with the Edinburgh International Film Festival. For more details of this year’s festival (16 – 27 June), visit www.edfilmfest.org.uk
CHRISTEN KØBKE: DANISH MASTER OF LIGHT
4 July – 3 October 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Admission £7 (£5 concessions)
This is the first exhibition devoted to paintings by Christen Købke (1810–1848) ever to be shown outside Denmark. Købke was a pre-eminent painter in his country and arguably one of the greatest talents of Denmark’s Golden Age. With the exception of one journey to Italy, he spent his entire life in and around the Citadel in Copenhagen, where he found the principal themes of his art. The exhibition features around 40 of Købke’s most celebrated works, spanning a variety of genres, and includes landscapes, portraits of many of his family and closest friends and charmingly oblique depictions of Danish national monuments.
Giving an overview of Købke’s achievement within its cultural context, the exhibition emphasises his exquisite originality and experimental outlook while focusing on the most innovative aspects of his work – including outdoor sketching, his fascination with painterly immediacy and treatment of light and atmosphere. Købke’s work demonstrates his ability to endow ordinary people and places and simple motifs with a universal significance, creating a world in microcosm for the viewer.
This exhibition is organised with the National Gallery in London, where it will be on show from the 17 March to the 13 June 2010.
ANOTHER WORLD
DALÍ, MAGRITTE, MIRÓ AND THE SURREALISTS
10 July 2010 - 9 January 2011
DEAN GALLERY, 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DS
Admission £7 (£5 concessions)
This comprehensive survey of Surrealist art, which will bring together masterpieces by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró, will be the major summer exhibition at the Dean Gallery in 2010. Another World, which will also form the centrepiece of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s 50th anniversary celebrations, will offer a fascinating overview of arguably the most important art movement of the twentieth century. The exhibition will include major loans from public and private collections and will offer visitors the chance to see the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s world-famous collection of Surrealist art in its entirety for the first time.
WHAT YOU SEE IS WHERE YOU’RE AT
Part 3 from 31 July
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
Admission free
This is the third major wave of displays celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The fourteen new displays feature masterpieces from the Gallery’s world-famous collection as well as major new works and commissions by international contemporary artists.
Highlights of the third phase of What you see is where you’re at include fifty proposals for actions created by Peter Liversidge which will be shown over fifty days. From the ARTIST ROOMS collection, there are spectacular large-scale sculptures by the American artist Robert Therrien, including a major new work, and multi-part works by Gilbert & George. A hypnotically beautiful film by Irish artist John Gerrard is complemented by the celebrated film by Breda Beban, The Most Beautiful Woman in Gucha. The Gallery will also be showing major new work by Boyle Family and Moyna Flannigan. Leading Scottish artist, Elizabeth Blackadder, and the Gallery’s former director, Richard Calvocoressi, have made selections from the permanent collection. Other displays include Russian Abstraction, Super-Realism and Scottish Modernism.
The new displays will be installed on a rolling basis from the end of May and will all be open by 31 July, making repeat visits essential.
IMPRESSIONIST GARDENS
31 July - 17 October 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Admission £10 (£7 concessions)
The highlight of the 2010 summer season at the National Gallery Complex will be a ground-breaking exhibition on the subject of paintings of Impressionist Gardens. This major international exhibition of around 100 works will include spectacular loans from collections around the world, and will be the first ever to be devoted to this fascinating subject. The famous names of Impressionism will be well represented, with fine examples by Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Manet and Sisley. In addition, the exhibition will examine the continued significance of the Impressionist garden to the generation of artists working immediately after the Impressionists, such as Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard. Lenders to Impressionist Gardens, which has been organised in partnership with the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, will include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; the Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; Tate, London; and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. This will be the only UK showing.
THE YOUNG VERMEER
10 December 2010 – 13 March 2011
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Admission free
Three paintings from Johannes Vermeer’s early career will be reunited for the very first time in a display at the National Galleries of Scotland in December 2010. Whilst Johannes Vermeer’s (1632-75) later work concentrates on domestic interiors, his early paintings seem to have focused primarily on traditional subjects derived from the Bible and classical mythology. The Young Vermeer will show three paintings created between 1653 and 1656: The National Galleries of Scotland’s Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (c.1654-55); The Procuress (1656) from Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden; and Diana and her Companions (c.1653-54) from Mauritshuis, the Royal Picture Gallery in The Hague. This display will present a unique opportunity to compare directly these three works and discover more about the development of this celebrated artist.
-ENDS-
For further information on any of these exhibitions, please contact the Press Office on 0131 624 6325 / 314 / 332 / 247 or [email protected]
www.nationalgalleries.org
PRESS VIEW – FRIDAY 2 JULY 2010, 11.30AM – 1PM NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL CHRISTEN KØBKE: DANISH MASTER OF LIGHT 4 July - 3 October 2010 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL Telephone 0131 624 6200, www.nationalgalleries.org Admission £7 (£5 concessions) Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light is the first monographic exhibition of paintings by Christen Købke (1810–1848) to be shown outside Denmark. Købke is the greatest of the Danish Golden Age painters, yet he is still insufficiently known outside his native country. This exhibition will introduce one of the most remarkable European artists of the nineteenth century to British audiences. This show comprises 48 of Købke’s most beautiful and distinguished works spanning a variety of genres: landscape, topography, portraiture and his charming depictions of national monuments. They present some of the most innovative aspects of his work – including outdoor sketching, his fascination with painterly immediacy, and his unique treatment of light and atmosphere. Scenes include those of his home town, Copenhagen (The Northern Drawbridge to the Citadel in Copenhagen, 1837, National Gallery, London); portraits of many of his family and closest friends (Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, Cecilia Margrete Købke, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh); portraits of fellow artists (Portrait of the Landscape Painter Frederik Sødring, 1832, The Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen) and of Danish national monuments (Frederiksborg Castle View Near the Møntbro Bridge, 1835, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen). Denmark’s ‘Golden Age’ – the term used to describe the amazing diversity of intellectual, scientific and cultural achievements of the first half of the 19th century – was nevertheless a time of social inequality and economic collapse as the nation was declared bankrupt in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. Yet Denmark recovered with remarkable swiftness and creative endeavour to produce in its art defining images of a peaceful, innocent, ordered society. Painters such as Købke reflected this renewal of national pride, depicting their lives and reflecting their surroundings through their art. Købke’s work demonstrates his ability to endow ordinary people, places and simple motifs with a universal significance, creating a world in microcosm for the viewer (Cigar Seller at the Northern Exit from the Citadel, Musée du Louvre, Paris). Købke never strayed far from his home city. He left Denmark for only one brief period between 1838 and 1840, reluctantly making the obligatory artists’ pilgrimage to Italy and painting scenes such as Castel dell’Uovo in Naples, (1838, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen). He found his inspiration more readily in Copenhagen painting his immediate surroundings, almost all of which were within the fortified walls of the Danish capital (View from Citadel Ramparts Towards Langelinie and the Naval Harbour, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen). The ‘Golden Age’ has become known as ‘the age of Købke’ and his precise and clear-cut manner, sharp focus and pristine light are now synonymous with our image of this era. Michael Clarke, Director of the National Gallery of Scotland said: 'Købke is a really wonderful artist, but until now he has remained a well-kept secret as far as the British public is concerned. We have had tremendous support from the Danish museums, who are lending very generously to this show. We, and our partners at the London National Gallery, are the only British galleries who already own works by Købke so it is very fitting that we should collaborate on this project.' Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light is organised with the National Gallery in London (17 March – 13 June 2010). It is curated by Professor David Jackson of the University of Leeds. His research has been generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. For further information and images please contact the National Galleries of Scotland’s press office on 0131 624 6325/6247/6314/6332 or [email protected]. ENDS Notes to Editors CATALOGUE Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light David Jackson with a contribution by Kasper Monrad Published by the National Galleries of Scotland in association with The National Gallery, London
PHOTOCALL: 11.30am, Thursday 27th May NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL THE GLASGOW BOYS: DRAWING INSPIRATION 29 May – 5 September 2010 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL Telephone 0131 624 6200 www.nationalgalleries.org Admission free This summer the National Gallery of Scotland presents an intimate exhibition which looks at the early careers of a small, loose-knit group of artists associated with new developments in painting in Glasgow at the end of the nineteenth century. The Glasgow Boys: Drawing Inspiration will consist of over 30 watercolours, drawings and sketches, which will provide an insight into the group’s working methods. These are to be shown alongside works by major European artists who inspired them. The Glasgow Boys: Drawing Inspiration has been scheduled to complement and coincide with the landmark exhibition Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880–1900 currently on show at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow. The majority of this group came from Glasgow and the west of Scotland, but some, most notably Arthur Melville (1855 – 1904), were from the east. The artists sought a new, fresher style away from the dark genre and history painting favoured by the Scottish Academicians of that time, whom they dubbed “The Gluepots”. Instead, they chose to paint in a simpler, more naturalistic style, producing an array of vibrant images which captured a vanishing way of life in rural and urban Scotland. Influences from Europe played a prominent role in shaping the Glasgow Boys’ style. They were fascinated by recent trends and innovations in European landscape painting, especially in the works of the Barbizon School in France and The Hague School in the Netherlands, both renowned for their atmospheric depictions of rural life and landscapes. Drawings by Anton Mauve and Jean-François Millet will reveal how the artists were often inspired by similar subjects. The group all shared a great admiration for James Abbott McNeill Whistler and the show will include two of his most influential early etchings. Many of the works in this exhibition will be on public display for the first time, including two newly acquired watercolours by Arthur Melville, generously gifted to the National Gallery of Scotland in 2008. Other highlights include two tiny jewel-like watercolour designs for stained glass windows by David Gauld and James Paterson’s beautifully atmospheric watercolour Moniaive. A selection of Guthrie’s sketchbooks and annotated letters and sketches by Guthrie, E. A. Walton and Joseph Crawhall will all offer a personal and often humorous glimpse into the artists’ private lives whilst revealing the close friendships amongst the group. The National Gallery of Scotland has lent some of its finest Glasgow School paintings and drawings to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and is delighted to be able to contribute to a series of events taking place across Scotland in 2010 celebrating the Glasgow Boys’ achievements. ENDS
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR ANTONY GORMLEY 6 TIMES From 22 June 2010 Telephone 0131 624 6200 www.nationalgalleries.org Work has begun in Edinburgh this month on an extraordinary multi-part sculptural project by the celebrated British artist Antony Gormley. Commissioned by the National Galleries of Scotland, 6 Times will consist of six life-sized figures positioned between the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the sea. Four of the figures will be sited in the Water of Leith itself, acting as gauges for the height of the river as it swells and recedes. The figure closest to the sea, at Leith Docks, is now in place and installation of the further figures will take place throughout June. This will be the first time that a work in the National Galleries’ collection has been permanently located across the city of Edinburgh itself. 6 Times has been commissioned with the support of The Art Fund, The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, The Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland, Claire Enders and The Henry Moore Foundation. The first figure will be located within the grounds of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Although a full-length cast, it will be buried in the ground up to neck-level. The next figure will appear within a basin of the river immediately behind the gallery, where it will gaze down into the water in a contemplative pose. A further three figures will be sited at separate points downstream in Stockbridge, Powderhall and Bonnington, looking progressively up, right and left. The final figure, now situated at the end of an abandoned pier in Leith Docks, looks out to the point where the river course finally meets the sea. This enigmatic, provocative and stimulating work will convey a sense of mystery and quiet monumentality, and will draw new attention to the important natural environment of the Water of Leith, which runs through the heart of Edinburgh. Born in London in 1950 Antony Gormley’s work has been exhibited extensively in exhibitions throughout the UK and internationally. Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994, and in 1997 created the Angel of the North for Gateshead. Over the last 25 years Antony Gormley has revitalised the human image in sculpture through a radical investigation of the body as a place of memory and transformation, using his own body as subject, tool and material. Antony Gormley says: 'It is wonderful to have the chance to make a work that connects so many different parts of this great city. When you see one you will, perhaps, remember another. The idea is to connect to time, weather and place and play part in the making of a scene, a picture, a reality, incomplete without you: the observer.' John Leighton, Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland, said: 'Antony Gormley’s sculptures have captured the imagination of many millions of people across the world and we are delighted to have this major work in Scotland. The National Galleries of Scotland is committed to bringing art out into the wider community and this installation along the Water of Leith is a very physical and prominent declaration of this aim.' Councillor Deidre Brock, Culture Leader for the City of Edinburgh Council, said: 'It's tremendously exciting that Edinburgh is to play host to these Antony Gormley sculptures. His evocative renditions of the human form have earned him global acclaim, and these new works will create a powerful and visually arresting complement to the natural beauty of the Water of Leith and its walkway.' Stephen Deuchar, Director, the Art Fund, said: 'This mesmerising work will open the doors of the gallery and extend its reach across the city of Edinburgh. We are so pleased to be helping turn this exceptional idea into a reality, so that generations to come will experience the famous walk along the Water of Leith in a wholly new way.' 6 Times has been made possible with the advice and support of Forth Ports PLC, Scottish Natural Heritage, City of Edinburgh Council, Water of Leith Conservation Trust, Ingleby Gallery, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Lothian and Borders Police, Water of Leith Bailiffs and Edinburgh community councils, and a project team including the Antony Gormley studio, Arup, Reiach and Hall, Briggs Marine, Mtec Art Handling and CFA Archaeology, working closely with the staff of the National Galleries of Scotland. For further information and images please contact the National Galleries of Scotland’s press office on 0131 624 6325/6247/6314/6332 or [email protected].
DIANE ARBUS ARTIST ROOMS 13 March – 13 June 2010 DEAN GALLERY, Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DS; 0131 624 6200 www.nationalgalleries.org Admission free The striking and profoundly original work of legendary American photographer Diane Arbus will be the subject of a major exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh this spring. Diane Arbus, which is part of the 2010 programme of ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions, will bring together some 70 black-and-white photographs, spanning the artist’s career from the mid-1950s until her untimely death in 1971. This outstanding selection of Arbus’s images was put together by the donor of the ARTIST ROOMS collection, Anthony d’Offay, in collaboration with the artist’s estate, and is one of the finest collections of her work in existence. The exhibition will also feature a small number of additional loans from a private collection, including an early self-portrait, taken when Arbus was pregnant with her first child in 1945. ARTIST ROOMS is the new national collection created by the curator and collector, Anthony d’Offay, and acquired by Tate and NGS in February 2008. Artist Rooms on Tour with The Art Fund supported by The Scottish Government has been devised to enable this collection to reach and inspire new audiences across the country, particularly young people. Following its successful launch in 2009, 21 museums and galleries across the UK will be showing 25 ARTIST ROOMS in 2010. To find out more information about ARTIST ROOMS on Tour please visit www.artfund.org/artistrooms. To see the full ARTIST ROOMS collection please visit www.tate.org.uk/artistrooms and www.nationalgalleries.org/artistrooms Diane Arbus will be the first exhibition in Scotland to be devoted to the photographer’s work in almost 40 years. Occupying the top floor of the Dean Gallery, it will feature some of her most celebrated images, including Tattooed man at a carnival, Md. 1970, and Young man and his pregnant wife in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C 1965. It will also include her lesser-known early work in 35 mm, as well as a very rare portfolio of original prints, A box of ten photographs, which Arbus produced shortly before her suicide in 1971. This includes perhaps her most iconic image, Identical twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967. Diane Arbus is one of the most significant photographers of the twentieth century, an influential figure whose compellingly honest style of photography paved the way for the work of many contemporary photographers and artists. Her distinctive approach is marked by the directness of her portraiture, and by her ability to find the familiar in the strange, and discover the unusual in the ordinary. Arbus undertook ‘to photograph everybody’, including circus and freak-show performers, transvestites, nudists and people with learning disabilities. The resulting portraits are bold and frank, but they also reflect the level of trust that Arbus worked hard to establish with her subjects, creating a complex, collaborative relationship that underpins the images, and invests them with much of their power. Arbus was born in New York in 1923, and began taking photographs in partnership with her husband, Allan Arbus, in the 1940s, working for fashion magazines such as Glamour and Vogue. It was not until the 1950s that she began to work seriously on her personal interests, after studying with the Austrian photographer Lisette Model, an experience that transformed her work. During the 1960s, Arbus received two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship grants, which allowed her to pursue projects such as her study of American Rites, Manners and Customs, and in 1967 she was one of three photographers whose work was the focus of New Documents, a landmark exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. A year after her death in 1971, Arbus was the first American photographer to have her work selected for inclusion in the Venice Biennale, the largest and most prestigious showcase for contemporary art in the world. In the late 1950s Arbus was experimenting with different techniques and looking for projects that interested her. She worked in many locations around New York, and followed in the tradition of American street photography, candidly photographing her surroundings with a 35mm camera. It was at this point that she became drawn to people who worked at, and visited, the amusement parks in Palisades Park and Coney Island, representatives of a subculture or underworld that remained a rich source of fascination for her. The exhibition will include an early example, Fire eater at a carnival, Palisades Park, N.J. 1956, as well as more iconic images such as Albino sword swallower at a carnival, Md. 1970, taken much later in Arbus’s career. The latter was originally commissioned for Esquire, the first magazine to publish Arbus’s work, in 1960. While she had mixed feelings about her commercial assignments, a period of imaginative magazine publishing in the 1960s created opportunities for Arbus to work on projects that aligned with her own personal interests. Well-known images such as A family on their lawn one Sunday in Westchester, N.Y.C 1966 and A young Brooklyn family going for a Sunday outing, N.Y.C. 1966 were made for an article on ‘American Families’ published in the UK by The Sunday Times Magazine. These images are typical of Arbus’s distinctively frontal, square-format portraiture, a style which developed after she began using a 2 ¼ inch, twin-lens Rolleiflex camera in 1962. Arbus often placed her sitters in the centre of the picture frame, intensifying the sense of an interaction or collaboration between her and the subjects she sought out. She photographed many of her subjects in New York’s public parks (Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962; Woman with a locket in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965), but many of her portraits are of people she met, befriended and then photographed, with striking intimacy, at home, usually in their bedrooms (Naked man being a woman N.Y.C. 1968). Arbus was deeply interested in gender and identity, and often photographed transvestites and transsexuals (Two female impersonators backstage, N.Y.C 1961; A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966). These works also reflect her broader interest in the rituals and customs of self-contained groups or mini-societies, such as ethnic minorities (Puerto Rican women with a beauty mark, N.Y.C. 1965; Jewish couple dancing, N.Y.C. 1963); nudists (Retired man and his wife at home in a nudist camp one morning, N.J. 1963); wealthy socialites (Mrs. T. Charlton Henry in an evening gown, Philadelphia, Pa. 1965; Four people at a gallery opening, N.Y.C. 1968); and the residents of institutions for people with learning disabilities (as seen in a series of untitled images from 1970-71). Diane Arbus’s singularly humane and compellingly personal approach to her subjects helped to redefine documentary photography, bridging the gap between this most accessible medium and the ‘higher’ arts. Her work has been described as an uncritical ‘celebration of things as they are’, which explores the extraordinary variety that can be found in the lives, emotions and appearances of ordinary people. This exhibition will offer an excellent overview of a truly remarkable body of the work. Following its showing in Edinburgh, Diane Arbus will be at Nottingham Contemporary from 24 July to 26 September 2010, as part of ARTIST ROOMS on Tour with The Art Fund. The Talbot Rice Gallery, the public art gallery of The University of Edinburgh, will be the venue for another ARTIST ROOMS display which opens this spring. Work by the American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer will be on show at the Talbot Rice from 27 March until 15 May 2010. -ENDS- For further information and images please contact: [email protected] Tel: 0131 624 6247 / 6314 / 6332 / 6325 Notes to Editors: This exhibition forms part of the programme of ARTIST ROOMS, a new collection of modern and contemporary art held by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland for the nation. The collection, which comprises more than 730 works, was assembled by Anthony d’Offay, whose London galleries played a key role in the promotion and understanding of twentieth-century art in the UK over a period of more than 30 years. ARTIST ROOMS was established through The d’Offay Donation in 2008, with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Art Fund and the Scottish and British Governments. The guiding principle for the creation of this national resource was the concept of individual rooms devoted to particular artists. ARTIST ROOMS is being shared with museums and galleries throughout the UK thanks to the support of independent charity The Art Fund, and within Scotland, the Scottish Government. The Art Fund The Art Fund is the UK’s leading independent art charity. It offers grants to help UK museums and galleries enrich their collections; campaigns on behalf of museums and their visitors; and promotes the enjoyment of art. It is funded from public donations and has 80,000 members. Since 1903 the charity has helped museums and galleries all over the UK secure 860,000 works of art for their collections. Recent achievements include: helping secure Titian’s Diana and Actaeon for the National Galleries of Scotland and The National Gallery in February 2009 with a grant of £1 million; helping secure Anthony d’Offay’s collection, ARTIST ROOMS for Tate and National Galleries of Scotland in February 2008 with a grant of £1 million – and providing an additional £500,000 for the collection to be toured throughout the UK in 2009 and 2010; and running the Buy a Brushstroke public appeal which raised over £550,000 to keep Turner’s Blue Rigi watercolour in the UK. For more information contact the Press Office on 020 7225 4888 or visit www.artfund.org . The Art Fund is a Registered Charity No. 209174
DIANA AND ACTAEON CELEBRATES ITS FIRST ANNIVERSARY SCOTTISH TOUR PLANS ANNOUNCED On the first anniversary of the nation’s acquisition of Titian’s Diana and Actaeon, the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) and the National Gallery in London are delighted to announce a tour of the painting to three venues in Scotland in 2010. The painting will be on public display in Aberdeen Art Gallery from 28 May to 27 June, at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow from 1 July to 1 August and at the McManus Galleries, Dundee from 6 August to 5 September. Fiona Hyslop, Scottish Minister for Culture, said: “Increasing access to the nation’s cultural collections is very important to us, so I am pleased to see Diana and Actaeon is to be displayed in Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow. I am sure the tour will not only attract visitors to the host venues; it will stimulate interest in other local museums and galleries. This can only be a good thing, both in terms of the benefits of cultural participation to individuals and for the contribution such high profile exhibitions make to local economies.” Margaret Hodge, Minister for Culture and Tourism said: “I am really pleased that this picture will now be touring the country. So many individuals and organisations worked together to save it for the nation; it is absolutely right – and thoroughly democratic - that it should now be seen and enjoyed by the widest possible audience.” John Leighton, Director-General of the NGS said: “The successful campaign to acquire Titian’s Diana and Actaeon brought one of the great masterpieces of Western art into public ownership. This tour will allow audiences across Scotland to experience the power and magic of this great painting at first hand.” Dr. Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery, London said: “Diana and Actaeon was acquired for the nation and the National Gallery in London hopes as wide an audience as possible will be able to enjoy it. We are delighted that the painting will first tour Scotland, the home of the painting for so many years. The National Gallery will announce a further tour to other parts of the United Kingdom when arrangements are finalised.” Diana and Actaeon was acquired for the nation by the NGS and the National Gallery in London in February 2009, following a large scale public and private fundraising campaign. The painting was bought for £50 million from the Duke of Sutherland with generous contributions from private and public donations, Scottish Government, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Monument Trust and The Art Fund, along with National Gallery, London and NGS funds. Diana and Actaeon has been seen by many thousands of people in London and Edinburgh during the past year. It is currently in London as part of a new display demonstrating Titian’s significant influence on his peers and on later paintings within the National Gallery’s collection, hanging alongside paintings by Cezanne, Rubens, Poussin, Claude, Constable and Titian’s The Death of Actaeon. There have been numerous projects and events focusing on the picture throughout the past year. Picture in Focus: Diana & Actaeon is a cross-curricular education project for schools run in partnership by the NGS and the National Gallery in London - involving five Scottish high schools and ten UK secondary schools in the pilot stage, before a proposed national roll-out in 2011. In Scotland Diana and Actaeon also takes prominence within school art tours and is the focus for music recitals, creative writing sessions and the subject for monthly life-drawing classes. In London the painting is the focus of regular Lunchtime and 10 Minute Talks, and will be the subject of Art Through Words (30 January 2010), a project for blind and partially sighted visitors. NOTES TO EDITORS: Comments from representatives of the touring venues: Aberdeen City Council’s Vice Covener for Education, Culture and Sport, Martin Greig said: “I am truly delighted that this magnificent work by Titian is coming to Aberdeen. Diana and Actaeon is a beautiful picture of immense art historical significance. The display in Aberdeen Art Gallery is a fantastic opportunity for this important painting to be appreciated and admired by a wide audience. There is a great appetite for culture in the area and this exhibition will appeal to many.” Bailie Liz Cameron, Chair of Culture and Sport Glasgow, said: “This summer Kelvingrove will be hosting the most important exhibition of the Glasgow Boys works ever to be staged. The addition of the Titian, thanks to our partnership with the National Galleries of Scotland, will only serve to increase Kelvingrove’s status as Scotland’s leading visitor attraction.” Cllr Bob Duncan, Convenor for Leisure, Arts and Communities with Dundee City Council said: “We are delighted to be hosting this prestigious national acquisition within the newly restored McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum. It is important that we bring the very best to the city to complement the nationally recognised collections we hold on behalf of the citizens of Dundee and indeed the nation. The National Galleries are to be congratulated on this initiative of bringing this work to the people of Scotland.” BACKGROUND INFORMATION Diana and Actaeon by Titian was formerly part of the Bridgewater Collection; a collection of paintings on long term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland from the Duke of Sutherland since 1945. The Galleries have also been granted the opportunity to buy a second painting - Diana and Callisto - for a similar amount by 2012. ABOUT THE BRIDGEWATER COLLECTION The Bridgewater Collection, currently on view at the National Galleries of Scotland, is the most important private collection of Old Master paintings on loan to an institution in the UK and counts among the most important art collections anywhere in the world. The loan includes masterpieces by artists such as Raphael (3), Titian (4), Rembrandt (1) and Poussin (8). The pictures have been on continuous public view in the National Gallery of Scotland since the collection was placed there in 1945 by the then 5th Earl of Ellesmere, later 6th Duke of Sutherland. It forms the core of the National Gallery of Scotland’s world-famous displays of European art. ABOUT DIANA AND ACTAEON Diana and Actaeon is one of six large-scale mythologies inspired by the Roman poet Ovid that Titian painted for King Philip II of Spain. Titian began the picture and its companion Diana and Callisto in 1556, the year of Philip’s coronation. Spurred on by the prestige of royal patronage, he unleashed all his creativity to produce works of unprecedented beauty and inventiveness. Titian worked for three years to perfect these masterpieces, which were shipped to Spain in 1559. He claimed their lengthy genesis was due to the relentless pains he took to make sumptuous works of art worthy of the King. The National Heritage Memorial Fund Using money raised through the National Lottery the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from and enjoy. The transformation of Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum was enabled with a grant of over £13 million from HLF while the refurbishment of the McManus Galleries is benefiting from a £5 million grant. PRESS ENQUIRIES For the National Galleries of Scotland Patricia Convery – Head of Press, Tel: 0131 624 6325, Email: [email protected] For the National Gallery, London Tracy Jones /Razeetha Ram - Head of Press, Tel: 020 7747 2839/020 7747 2519 General Press Office number: 020 7747 2865 Email: [email protected]/ [email protected] (please email both)