National Galleries of Scotland

6 January 2020

DRINKING THE RAIN
Friday 10 January – Sunday 2 February 2020
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One)
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission FREE
#ScotModern

After nearly six years, Pig Rock Bothy (the wooden structure alongside the path up to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One (SNGMA)) is moving on from the grounds in March 2020. It will eventually be relocated to Assynt in the North West Highlands of Scotland, the landscape that inspired its design and purpose.

The new and final exhibition will display material from recent Bothy Project residencies at Sweeney’s Bothy on the Island of Eigg and Inshriach Bothy in the Cairngorms National Park. Including work by: Siân Robinson Davies; This Way - Emily Macaulay and Felicity Rowley; Ashanti Harris; Lydia Honeybone; James N. Hutchinson and Sarah Rose.

Bothy Project was commissioned to create Pig Rock Bothy as part of GENERATION in 2014 – an exhibition celebrating 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland. It was made as a collaboration between artists, Bobby Niven and Laura Aldridge, and architect Iain MacLeod, in response to the landscape and community in Assynt. The structure was conceived as part of a network of residency bothies by Bothy Project, on the Island of Eigg and in the Cairngorms National Park. Pig Rock Bothy, at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One, acted as a temporary venue for talks, performances and events.

Since 2014 it has hosted an experimental and collaborative programme, including exhibitions with Torsten Lauschmann, Stacey Tyrell with Mother Tongue and David Faithfull; performances by Calvin Laing & Stephanie Mann and Rhubaba Choir; projects with Atlas Arts, Action for Children and Artlink; and residencies with creative arts courses including Edinburgh College, Edinburgh College of Art and The Glasgow School of Art. This year, Pig Rock Bothy hosted HappyHere, a participatory, immersive light installation, which used colour and light to visualise thoughts and feelings.

Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at NGS, said: ‘We’ve loved being home to the Pig Rock Bothy – hand-built to a design by architect Iain MacLeod & artists Bobby Niven and Laura Aldridge - whose leaning end gable has become an iconic sight in its own right. It has given us the opportunity to showcase the creativity of organisations and individuals from across the whole of Scotland in a variety of different art forms. The initial plan was for it to stay with us for just a year and, given our commitment to continually evolve our art programme, it is timely for it to move onto the next stage in it journey.’

David Cook, Chair, Bothy Project board said: ‘Artists Bobby Niven and Laura Aldridge, and architect Iain MacLeod were delighted to work with the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One to realise Pig Rock Bothy, bringing a sense of Assynt to Scotland’s central belt, and adding this ambitious structure, to the Bothy Project’s network of bothies on the Isle of Eigg and Cairngorms National Park. After nearly six years of activity Pig Rock Bothy at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One it will begin its journey to Assynt, the area that inspired it and where we are working with The Assynt Foundation.’

Thanks to Hope Scott Trust and William Grant Foundation for supporting residencies and MAP Magazine for publishing new writing.        

Notes to Editors

Saturday 18 January 2020 (2-5pm) – Take Yourself Out Of Your Usual Structure with Anna McLauchlan plus artists James N. Hutchinson and Sarah Rose, who will be exploring the themes of their Inshriach Bothy inspired writing. Find the event via this link.

Friday 31 January 2020 (5.30-7.30pm) – To See and Know More where writer Maria Fusco will present work in relation to her residency at Sweeney’s Bothy on Eigg. Find the event via this link. 

More information on The Bothy Project can be found via this link.

The exhibition page can be found via this link.

11 December 2019 

Experience the dazzling and fascinating life of King James VI & I

Bright Star: The Art and Life of King James VI & I
20 June 2020 – 21 November 2020
Scottish National Portrait Gallery 1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org Tickets: £14-£12
Supported by the Friends of the National Galleries of Scotland and Players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

A major exhibition exploring the extraordinary life of King James VI & I (1566-1625) will be one of the headline shows in the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) summer 2020 programme.
This is the first exhibition in over 40 years devoted to the man who united the crowns of Scotland and England in 1603 and was the son of Mary Queen of Scots.

Bright Star: The Art and Life of King James VI & I will uncover a wealth of artistic and cultural riches of the Jacobean period. It will feature an extraordinary variety of artworks and objects such as paintings, dress and textiles, miniatures, drawings, books, manuscripts and jewellery. These include highlights from the famous Cheapside Hoard, an accumulation of jewellery from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, discovered in London in 1912, which have not been on display in Scotland for over 40 years. The exhibition will bring together outstanding works by artists such as Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619) and Inigo Jones (1573-1652), and will include significant loans from public and private collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate, Blair Castle, the National Portrait Gallery, London and National Museums Scotland and works lent by Her Majesty The Queen from the Royal Collection.

James was the only son of Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587), one of the most notorious and romantic figures in Scottish history. He was crowned when only a year old, during a period of great unrest and uncertainty which followed the death of his parents. The exhibition will begin by focussing on James’ turbulent childhood and youth, and will move through the defining moments of his life, including his coming of age; his marriage to Anna of Denmark (1574-1619), the birth (and deaths) of his children, the Union of the Crowns, when he proclaimed himself ‘King of Great Britain’; and the move of his family and court to London. The key moments presented within the exhibition provide a rich historical context for contemporary debate.

A prolific scholar and author, James was highly cultured and known for writing about many subjects, including government, witchcraft and tobacco. His court, both in Scotland and London, became a great centre for creative and artistic innovation and renowned as a centre for literature and entertainment.

Speaking about the exhibition, Christopher Baker, Director of European and Scottish Art and Portraiture at the NGS, said: “Visitors to this important exhibition will be immersed in the visually dazzling culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries – a time when many questions we are now concerned with, such as what sort of government is legitimate, were being first asked. James’ court was sophisticated and European in outlook and ‘Bright Star: The Art and Life of King James’ will reveal its full splendour. ”

Kate Anderson, Senior Curator, European & Scottish Art and Portraiture said: “The objects in this exhibition not only shed light on the fascinating life of James VI & I, his family and members of his court, but are unique and exquisite works of art made by highly skilled artists and craftspeople. Highlights include a miniature portrait of Queen Anna of Denmark set in a diamond and enamel case made by the Edinburgh goldsmith George Heriot, and the brilliantly coloured drawings of costume for court masques designed by Inigo Jones.
When James arrived in London in May 1603 he was met by the lawyer and orator Richard Martin who proclaimed that James was the ‘Bright Star of the North’, alluding to both the King’s homeland of Scotland and the optimism associated with his future reign.”

-ENDS-
Notes to Editors:

The exhibition will be accompanied by a sumptuous and authoritative catalogue, Art & Court of James VI & I: Bright Star of the North, published by the NGS and available for £30.00. It includes contributions from a number of key scholars and features over 120 colour illustrations.

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11 December 2019 

National Galleries of Scotland announces a season of wonder with its 2020 summer programme

The National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) announced today a season of wonder with an extraordinary programme of ticketed and free exhibitions for its 2020 summer programme across all three gallery sites in Edinburgh.  

Highlights of the season include the first exhibition in over 40 years devoted to exploring the fascinating life of King James VI & I; the once-in-a-lifetime reunion of five of Titian’s greatest works, together for the first time since 1704; and a ground-breaking display celebrating the career of special effects superstar Ray Harryhausen in the largest and widest-ranging exhibition of his work ever seen. 

RAY HARRYHAUSEN: TITAN OF CINEMA
23 May 2020 – 25 Oct 2020
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two)
73 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DS
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Tickets: £14-12 (Concessions available)
Free for our Friends
#Harryhausen100

Next summer, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA) will host the largest and widest-ranging exhibition ever seen of the work of cinema titan Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013).

In collaboration with The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, the NGS will unveil iconic original models and the matchless archive of the pioneering legend, who elevated stop-motion animation to an art form during the 1950s to 1980s. Harryhausen’s movies, such as Clash of the Titans and Mighty Joe Young, inspired a whole generation of the world’s greatest moviemakers, including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, and his impact on modern cinema is without parallel. Spielberg, Lucas and Jackson credit Harryhausen’s art as the direct inspiration for their careers, and for the creation of Jurassic Park, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings respectively.

Newly-restored models from movies such as Jason and the Argonauts and his Sinbad series, as well as previously unseen material from Harryhausen’s all-encompassing collection, will go on display in an immersive exhibition quite unlike anything the Gallery has ever hosted before, from 23 May 2020.

ARRIVALS | NEW ACQUISITIONS FROM PABLO PICASSO TO JENNY SAVILLE 
Summer 2020
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One)
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh EH4 3DR
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission Free
#OurNewArrivals

Next year will bring a fascinating showcase of our most recent acquisitions to the SNGMA. This exhibition will offer a stunning range of modern and contemporary work including painting, sculptures, films and more by artists such as Damien Hirst, Jenny Saville and Pablo Picasso. Take a look at the latest additions to the national collection in a unique and stunning display.

BRIGHT STAR: THE ART AND LIFE OF KING JAMES VI AND I
20 June 2020 – 21 November 2020
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Tickets: £14-£12 (Concessions available)
 #JamesBrightStar

A major exhibition exploring the extraordinary life of King James VI & I (1566-1625) will be the first exhibition in over 40 years devoted to the man who united the crowns of Scotland and England in 1603 and who was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Bright Star: The Art and Life of King James VI & I will uncover a wealth of artistic and cultural riches of the Jacobean period. It will feature an extraordinary variety of artworks and objects such as paintings, dress and textiles, miniatures, drawings, books, manuscripts and jewellery. These include highlights from the famous Cheapside Hoard, an accumulation of jewellery from the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries, discovered in London in 1912, which have not been on display in Scotland for over 40 years.

The exhibition will bring together outstanding works by artists such as Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619) and Inigo Jones (1573-1652), and will include significant loans from public and private collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate, Blair Castle, the National Portrait Gallery, London and National Museums Scotland and works lent by Her Majesty The Queen from the Royal Collection.

TITIAN: LOVE, DESIRE, DEATH
11 July 2020 – 27 September 2020
Royal Scottish Academy
The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Tickets: £15-£10 (Concessions available)
#LoveTitian

Five of the greatest paintings in the world, from Titian’s epic series of large-scale mythological paintings known as the ‘poesie’, will be brought together for the first time in over 300 years in an exhibition jointly organized by the National Gallery in London, the NGS, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

Titian’s poesie is one of most significant groups of paintings of the high Renaissance. Painted between 1551-62 at the request of Philip II of Spain, these rich, exquisite paintings are among the most original visual interpretations of Classical myths and are key works in the history of European painting.

Titian: Love, Desire, Death will reunite Danaë (1551–3, The Wellington Collection, Apsley House); Venus and Adonis (1554, Prado, Madrid); Diana and Actaeon (1556-9) and Diana and Callisto (1556-9), jointly owned by the National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland; and the newly conserved Rape of Europa (1562) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

The history and significance of Titian’s ‘poetry in painting’ will be conveyed through exciting interpretations and unique exploratory insights on the Venetian master’s technique, and will be accompanied by both portraits and translations of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, the book which Titian based most of the works upon.

This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition will first be shown in London, then travelling to the Royal Scottish Academy for the summer, before leaving for Spain in late 2020. The worldwide tour will culminate in Boston in February 2021.

TEMPLES TO TENEMENTS: PHOTOGRAPHS OF ARCHITECTURE
25 July 2020 – 10 January 2021
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission Free
#TemplesToTenements

Following the successful launch of Scotland’s Photograph Album: The MacKinnon Collection this winter, NGS will continue to explore the rich history of photography in a new exhibition dedicated to architecture. Temples to Tenements: Photographs of Architecture, which opens in July 2020 at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, will be the fourth instalment of a popular series of free exhibitions which use a central theme in the history of photography to explore the richness of the NGS collection.

Architecture is a record of human life past, present and predicted future. From early photographic experiments to the manipulation of digital images, the built environment is one of the most enduring themes in the story of photography. Temples to Tenements explores the world around us through the work of photographers as diverse as David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson, Thomas Annan, Andreas Gursky and Chris Leslie.

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors:

People’s Postcode Lottery

• People’s Postcode Lottery manages multiple society lotteries promoted by different charities and good causes. People play with their chosen postcodes for a chance to win cash prizes. A minimum of 32% from each subscription goes directly to charities and good causes across Great Britain and internationally -- players have raised £500 million so far. For details of the charities and good causes which are promoting and benefitting from the lottery draws, please visit https://www.postcodelottery.co.uk/good-causes/draw-calendar
   
• It costs £10 a month to play and winning postcodes are announced every day. The maximum amount a single ticket can win is 10% of the draw proceed. For details, please visit www.postcodelottery.co.uk/prizes
   
• New players can sign up to pay using direct debit by calling 0808 10 9 8 7 6 5. New players who sign up online at www.postcodelottery.co.uk can pay using direct debit, debit card or PayPal.
   
• Postcode Lottery Limited is regulated by the Gambling Commission under licence numbers: 000-000829-N-102511 and 000-000829-R-102513. Registered office: Titchfield House, 69/85 Tabernacle Street, London, EC2A 4BD
   
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15 November 2019 

Monumental Vulcan Gets a Makeover

Vulcan, the 7.4m high sculpture by Eduardo Paolozzi, at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two) in Edinburgh is undergoing a thorough clean and dusting off. The work is being done whilst the Gallery is temporarily closed to allow the café to be refurbished and a new exhibition installed.

Modern Two reopens on 23 November with the start of Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance, the first major retrospective of the artist’s work to be shown in Scotland and Vulcan will be back on display when the café reopens in December.

Specially commissioned for the Gallery’s Great Hall, Vulcan is a 7.4m high sculpture, spanning two floors of the Gallery, looming above the diners in the café with its head skimming the ceiling of the second floor. A team of skilled conservationists from National Galleries of Scotland is undertaking this epic cleaning task over the course of three days where they will carefully wrap and unwrap different areas in protective layers and use a variety of tools and solutions to restore the Vulcan to its original glory.

Inspired by the Roman god of fire Vulcan and Hephaestus, his Greek counterpart, Paolozzi’s monumental sculpture is constructed of welded steel. Vulcan was lame, which is the reason he is aided by a support here. In Paolozzi's work, Vulcan is shown swinging his hammer and marching across the Great Hall. He is half-man and half-machine - a monument to the modern age.

Born into an Italian-Scots family Sir Eduardo Paolozzi grew up in Leith, Edinburgh, later moving to London. He is considered one of the most versatile sculptors in post-war Britain. Throughout his career, Paolozzi combined his work as an artist with teaching in art colleges in Britain and, for periods, in Germany. He had an enthusiastic and encyclopaedic variety of interests in the world and this was reflected by his frequent changes of media and styles in which he worked.

 Studying in Edinburgh and London he also spent two years in Paris from 1947, where he produced enigmatic, bronze sculptures reminiscent of those by Giacometti. During the same period he made a series of Dada and Surrealist-inspired collages in which magazine advertisements, cartoons and machine parts are combined, thus becoming a pioneer of Pop Art. He also continued to develop his printmaking and sculpture. Paolozzi was particularly interested in the mass media and in science and technology.

Originally built as the Dean Orphan Hospital in 1833 by Thomas Hamilton, Modern Two was converted into a gallery by Terry Farrell and Partners in 1999 in order to show the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s extensive collection of Dada and Surrealist art and also to house a generous gift by Paolozzi,  in 1994, of a large collection of his work. Modern Two also has a recreation of Paolozzi’s London studio, giving an unprecedented insight into the man and the source of his ideas. The studio is divided into areas for different types of activity: desks for reading and working with paper, shelves of reference books, a large central table for modelling, and working with plaster casts, and a bunk for resting. Paolozzi was interested in a number of themes and by seeing his studio, visitors are able to get an idea of the ways he worked and the inspiration he drew from the world around him.

—ENDS—
Notes to Editors

Working alongside catering partner, Heritage Portfolio an extensive refurbishment programme will be carried out of the Modern Two café over the next few weeks.

When the Modern Two café reopens its doors in December, it will be known as Paolozzi’s Kitchen.

Modern Two reopens on 23 November with the start of Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance, the first major retrospective of the artist’s work to be shown in Scotland. The exhibition confronts topical issues such as gender discrimination, poverty, abortion, female genital mutilation, political tyranny and the death of civilians in war. Further works in the exhibition begin with memories of the artist’s childhood in Portugal and other lived experiences, often responding to stories from literature, cinema, folklore, mythology and art history.

24 October 2019

ART COMPETITION FOR SCHOOLS 2020

Entry: open now until Friday 24th April 2020
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
#ArtCompSchools #ScotModern

The National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) art competition for schools 2020 is now open for entries. It is a yearly event run by NGS for schools and nurseries across Scotland. The 2019 competition, the 16^th year it has been running, received over 8,600 entries from schools and nurseries across 31 local authorities and had 53 winners across six categories – Nursery, P1-3, P4-7, S1-3, SEN and Group entries.

The Art Competition for Schools, supported by player’s of People’s Postcode Lottery, aims to encourage nursery and school children to interact with and be inspired by art works in the national art collection. The competition and its themes contribute to the teaching of the curriculum for excellence and inter-disciplinary learning and designed with age groups in mind. As well as an inspiring theme to engage learners, each category has further resources based on the national art collection to support teachers and inspire students to talk about, look at and create their own artwork that they can enter into the competition.

53 winners will be chosen by a panel of judges who are looking for: originality and creativity; confident handling of materials; and boldness and impact. Every winning artwork will be exhibited at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA) and every winner is invited to a special prize ceremony and will receive a prize of art materials. As well as seeing their work in the SNGMA, a selection will have their works featured in a calendar that will be sent to every school in Scotland and is available for sale in the gallery shop.     

When submitting their entries, teachers can also apply to win art supplies or an artist-led workshop for their class. A total of twelve £100 vouchers for materials and twelve workshops are up for grabs.

Kim Tremlett, art teacher at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, said “I've submitted work by children in my school over the past eight years and it's been a wonderful experience as a teacher to see how much the children enjoy taking part.

The themes have consistently been inspiring and I've had so much fun helping children rise to the challenge of making great visual responses to the brief. The National Galleries Competition for Schools is a key part of my annual art plans and I always look forward to what a new year taking part again will bring.”

Debbie Wood, Head of Art at St Mary’s Melrose, said “As a teacher I always enjoy this competition. The themes are always stimulating and allow for lots of creative thinking from the children.”  

How to enter:

You can get involved in the Art Competition for Schools 2020 by following this link. All you need to do is find the right category for your class, read through the theme and requirements, and then set your creative students to work. Information on how to submit your entries and the terms and conditions are available via this link. The closing date is Friday 24^th April 2020. The schools who have winners will be contacted following the closing date.

See the 2019 Art Competition for Schools:

The response to the 2019 art competition was overwhelming. The submitted work covered a range of media, from pen and paper, paint, pastel, photography, mixed media and more. Such as Ben Brown’s winning entry (below) which involved mixing paint and newspapers for a fantastic fish n’ chips.

Ben’s mother, Karen Brown, said “We were so proud of Ben and his achievement.  He worked really hard on his painting.  Ben did so well on the day of the Award Ceremony to go up and receive his prize - it really shows how much he has progressed with the help of his school, Kilmaron, and the input of the staff there. It really is a testimony to how they recognise a young person's talent and allow it to develop. After Ben won, everyone was so pleased for him and he has received letters of congratulations from his local MP Stephen Gethins and from Fife Council. The art contest has been a wonderful and rare opportunity for Ben to take part in something alongside his peers and has been a hugely positive experience for him and us as a family.”

Sholto Key, St Mary's Melrose school, was awarded Special Merit in Category B for this fantastic artwork on ‘dragons’. It’s an inventive, expressive and brilliant interpretation of the theme. 

“We loved seeing all the children’s artwork (wow, there is some amazing young talent out there) and especially enjoyed seeing Sholto’s painting on display. We had a memorable day and, at the tender age of 5, Sholto has no idea how special it will be in adulthood to say he has exhibited at the National Galleries of Scotland!” said Sholto’s mother, Viv Key.   

Ellie Stewart, Belmont House School, received a Special Merit in Category C for her brilliant collaged piece interpreting the theme ‘Spark, Flicker, Flame’.

“My daughter, Ellie received a merit award for Primary 4-7 category. I think winning this award has been a great boost for Ellie’s confidence, and I am sure it will only encourage her to explore her imagination further for future art projects.

Other family members and friends, who may not necessarily go to an Art Gallery, are going to visit this summer also, which is good to hear it has encouraged others to visit this beautiful gallery,” said Ellie’s mother, Heather Stewart.

Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at NGS, said “The great artist Pablo Picasso always maintained that ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once grown up.’ We are proud to show and celebrate the amazing creativity of children from across Scotland at Modern One, and we can’t wait to see what wonderful pieces are produced in 2020.”

Laura Chow, Head of Charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said “We are proud that players of People’s Postcode Lottery are supporting the National Galleries of Scotland Art Competition for Schools. Children at schools across the length of Scotland will have the opportunity to unleash their creativity, taking inspiration from the national collection to make masterpieces of their own. We hope many children will be inspired to take part and look forward to seeing the entries!”

Siobhan McConnachie, Head of Learning and Engagement at NGS, said “When we look at the work that has been submitted we can see the enjoyment that the young people have had in creating their wonderful art - that is the great pleasure of being involved in the art competition. It’s wonderful that so many schools take part and I hope many more do this year.”

The winning entries for 2019 are currently on display at The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall until 2 January 2020 and will go from there to Borders General Hospital between 8 January – 30 April 2020. This follows the exhibition at the SNGMA over the summer between 1 June – 22 September 2019.

- ENDS -

Notes to Editors

Further information about the National Galleries of Scotland Art Competition for schools can be found via this link.

18 October 2019

Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance

23 November 2019 – 19 April 2020
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two)
73 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DS
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Tickets: £11.50-£10.50 online (Concessions available)
25 & under: £7.50-£6.50 | Free for our Friends

The first major retrospective of Paula Rego’s (b.1935) work to be shown in Scotland is to be held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art this winter. The exhibition, Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance, confronts topical issues such as gender discrimination, poverty, abortion, female genital mutilation (FGM), political tyranny and the death of civilians in war. Further works in the exhibition begin with memories of the artist’s childhood in Portugal and other lived experiences, often responding to stories from literature, cinema, folklore, mythology and art history.

Rego is one of the most important artists living in Britain today. She is celebrated for her outstanding and suggestive story-telling abilities. Obedience and Defiance spans over fifty years of her international career, from the 1960s to the 2010s. It features more than 80 works, lent from public and private collections, including gifts from the artist to her friends.

Rego is admired for her courageous exploration of moral challenges to humanity. Current affairs have led to some of her most powerful works, such as the 1998 referendum on legalising abortion in Portugal, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the United States and its allies and, from 2008, FGM. This will be the first time paintings addressing political and social repression in Portugal in the 1960s, under the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, will be shown in Scotland.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• Salazar Vomiting the Homeland (1960) which protests against the authoritarian regime of Salazar, prime minister of the country between 1932 and 1968

• Dancing Ostriches (1995) inspired by Walt Disney’s 1940 film Fantasia and the comic sequence of animated ostriches, hippos, elephants and alligators ballet-dancing. Rego’s sweaty protagonist drawn from a surrogate self-portrait, her assistant Lila Nunes, appears 18 times.

• Angel (1998), is Rego’s imagining of the revenge of the Father Amaro’s disgraced girlfriend, Amélia, in the controversial Portuguese novel of 1875, The Crime of Father Amaro by José Maria de Eça de Quierós and indeed, all women thus wronged.

• Untitled No. 4 (1998) from Rego’s Abortion series, made in response to the failure of Portugal’s 1998 referendum to legalise the procedure; a second referendum in 2007 was successful.

• War (2003), triggered by a newspaper photograph taken after a bomb explosion in Basra, Iraq, employing disfigured, hybrid animal-humans

• Painting Him Out (2011) which reverses the traditional relationship between a male artist and his female muse

Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance has been curated by the distinguished art historian and former director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, Catherine Lampert, who has been friends with Rego for thirty years. It comes to Scotland following a very successful run at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes and will tour from Edinburgh to IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) in Dublin.

Speaking about the exhibition, Curator, Lampert, said: “It is tempting to focus on the moral, political and narrative significance and the meaningful details of a single work or a series, however, seeing Paula Rego’s paintings on the wall, to me they appear so grand and museum-like, more like nuanced, mesmerising portraits of the people closest to her.”

Speaking about Rego, Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the NGS, said: “We are delighted to be showing this major body of work by one of the world’s most extraordinary artists. Over the course of her lifetime, Rego has shown herself to be an unflinching witness of her times, and one of the most imaginative and compelling image-makers of her generation. She is one of the few artists that consistently speaks of and for her times.”

Rego has generously made a limited edition print from her Abortion series available for sale during the exhibition, to support NGS. A major new publication will accompany the exhibition with texts by Catherine Lampert and the American writer and novelist Kate Zambreno, published by ART/BOOKS, see nationalgalleries.org for further details.

-ENDS-

Notes to Editors:
An exhibition organised by MK Gallery, Milton Keynes with the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and IMMA, Dublin

The exhibition will tour to IMMA, Dublin (keep an eye on imma.ie/ for dates) where it will be the first ever survey of the artist’s work in Ireland.

Please note that this exhibition addresses challenging subjects, including abortion, female genital mutilation (known as FGM) and gender discrimination; it also includes images of a suggestive and / or graphic nature. Parental and carer discretion may be required.

In 2017 Rego’s son, Nick Willing, released an award-winning documentary about his mother called Secrets and Stories. It will be shown as part of the exhibition.

Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance related events can be found via nationalgalleries.org/whats-on?
Born in Lisbon in 1935, Rego trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. She is one of Europe’s most influential contemporary figurative artists. A contemporary of Frank Auerbach and David Hockney, Rego’s work is represented in many public collections including the Tate Gallery, British Museum, National Gallery, London, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon and the Serralves Museum, Porto. A museum dedicated to Rego, Casa das Histórias, opened in Cascais, Portugal in 2009. She is represented by Marlborough Fine Art.

18 October 2019

Scotland’s Photograph Album: The MacKinnon Collection

16 November 2019 – 16 February 2020
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission free

An exceptional collection of historic photographs that captures a century of life in Scotland will be showcased in a special exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) in collaboration with the National Library of Scotland this autumn, with a plan to tour the collection to three venues around Scotland in 2020/21.

Acquired jointly with assistance from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Scottish Government and Art Fund, Scotland’s Photograph Album: The MacKinnon Collection celebrates Scottish life and identify from the 1840s through to the 1940s. The collection, which was acquired by photography enthusiast Murray MacKinnon, began when he ran a successful chain of film-processing stores in the 1980s, starting from his pharmacy in Dyce, near Aberdeen.

Showcasing a century of dramatic transformation and innovation, the exhibition features more than 100 selected images from MacKinnon’s collection which brilliantly transports the audience back to a period of changing rural communities, growing cities and enduring historic sites.

The chronicle of Scotland’s culture during the mid-19th to early 20th centuries is inseparable from its leading role in the early history of photography itself. Many of the first practitioners and visionaries who pushed the medium forward were based in Scotland or were inspired by Scottish subjects. The exhibition includes photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Thomas Annan, Roger Fenton, George Washington Wilson, and others who created stunning images of Scotland’s people and places and established precedents for photographers worldwide.

National Galleries of Scotland, Director General Sir John Leighton, said: “Scotland’s Photograph Album: The MacKinnon Collection allows audiences the chance to be transported back to a century of change and growth. It is not only a fascinating look at historical Scottish life that sits just on the edge of living memory, but also an important showcase of the innovative progression of photography in Scotland.”

National Librarian, Dr John Scally, said: “Scotland has a special relationship with photography which dates back to the work of early pioneers such as David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson in the 1840s. The remarkable MacKinnon collection tracks that unique connection between Scotland and photography through its 14,000 pictures spanning 100 years. The exhibition presents a stunning selection of images which will spark memories and emotional connections in every visitor. It is truly Scotland’s photograph album.”

Caroline Clark, Scotland Director of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, added: “Taken in the pioneering days of photography, these historical images allow us a first glimpse of our ancestors going about their daily lives. This fascinating exhibition opens the week we celebrate 25 years of The National Lottery, one of the thousands of projects celebrating and exploring Scotland’s rich heritage made possible by National Lottery players.”

While photography is known for its reproducibility, many of the artworks contained within the collection are unique, including daguerreotype portraits and hand-made albums. Highlights of the exhibition include:

• Original photographs from the pioneering days of photography featuring work from David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848), James Ross (d.1878) and John Thomson (d.1881), Cosmo Innes (1798-1874) and Horatio Ross (1801-1886)

• Work from Thomas Annan (1829-1887) and his son, James Craig Annan (1864-1946) including examples of their photographs of Glasgow

• Images from George Washington Wilson (1823-1893) and James Valentine (1815-1880), who travelled across Scotland photographing its people and places

• An exquisite view of Loch Katrine by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), who travelled to Scotland in the autumn of 1844. Talbot was the inventor of the calotype, a negative-positive paper process that was patented around the world, except, importantly, in Scotland, allowing for free use and experimentation

• Portraits of Scottish regiments from the Crimean War by Roger Fenton (b. 1819-1869)

• A series of albums and prints depicting life in the main Scottish towns and cities from the late 1800s and early 1900s

• Studies of farming and fishing communities in remote villages and hamlets    

• Scenes of shipbuilding, railways, herring fishing, weaving, whisky distilling, dockyards, slate quarries and other working environments

-ENDS-​
Notes to Editors:
Acquired jointly with the National Library of Scotland with assistance from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Scottish Government and Art Fund.

The National Library of Scotland will also display a selection of images from The MacKinnon Collection at its George IV Bridge Building, curated to chime with Scotland’s themed Year of Coasts  and Waters (2020). At the Water’s Edge opens to the public on Saturday 16 November and runs until Sunday 16 February 2020. Admission is free. 

The National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland is a major European research library and one of the world’s leading centres for the study of Scotland and the Scots – an information treasure trove for Scotland’s knowledge, history and culture.

The Library’s collections are of world-class importance. Key areas include rare books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, music, moving images, official publications, business information, science and technology, and modern and foreign collections.

The Library holds more than 30 million physical items dating back over 1000 years in addition to a growing library of e-books, e-journals and other digital material. Every week the Library collects around 5,000 new items. Most of these are received free of charge in terms of Legal Deposit legislation. 

www.nls.uk / @natlibscot / facebook

National Lottery Heritage Fund

Using money raised by the National Lottery, we Inspire, lead and resource the UK’s heritage to create positive and lasting change for people and communities, now and in the future. www.heritagefund.org.uk.

Follow @HeritageFundUK on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLotteryHeritageFund 

Art Fund

Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art. In the past five years alone Art Fund has given £34 million to help museums and galleries acquire works of art for their collections. It also helps museums share their collections with wider audiences by supporting a range of tours and exhibitions, and makes additional grants to support the training and professional development of curators.

Art Fund is independently funded, with the core of its income provided by 151,000 members who receive the National Art Pass and enjoy free entry to over 240 museums, galleries and historic places across the UK, as well as 50% off entry to major exhibitions and subscription to Art Quarterly magazine. In addition to grant-giving, Art Fund’s support for museums includes Art Fund Museum of the Year (won by St Fagans National History Museum near Cardiff in 2019) and a range of digital platforms.

Find out more about Art Fund and the National Art Pass at www.artfund.org

10 October 2019

Visitors shopping for Christmas gifts at the National Galleries of Scotland this year will experience a newly refurbished flagship store at the Scottish National Gallery on the Mound.

The new look shop opened at the beginning of October, along with a new Gardens entrance. This forms part of the major redevelopment of the SNG to create brand new, light-filled gallery spaces for the nation’s unrivalled collection of Scottish art, and to ensure the galleries and East Princes Street Gardens are accessible for all, with the introduction of new paths and landscaping.  

The newly opened shop stocks Scottish gifts, art prints, stationery, fashion accessories, craft, design and exclusive products featuring images from the nation’s world-class art collection. There is an enhanced book area promoting our own NGS publications and a wider range of art books.

As a shopping destination this Christmas, shoppers can seek out art-inspired gifts which represent the rich culture and heritage of Scotland. Visitors shopping for Christmas gifts can browse and buy greeting cards, prints, scarves, mugs and other classic gallery mementos carrying well-loved images from Scottish artworks including the Skating Minister, Monarch of the Glen and Lady Agnew.

Whilst construction work continues within the Scottish National Gallery, gallery shoppers can enter via the newly landscaped entrance and accessible path at the East Princes Street Gardens level of the Gallery, in the heart of Edinburgh’s bustling city centre.

Patricia Allerston, Co-director of ‘Celebrating Scotland’s Art’: The Scottish National Gallery Project, said: “The fabulous new Gallery Shop, along with the beautifully refurbished Scottish Cafe & Restaurant are fantastic assets to the Scottish National Gallery, and easily accessible via the new Gallery entrance. A smart, new self-service café, Espresso is also available at the upstairs door of the Gallery accessible from the precinct.

“We are keen to ensure that Scotland’s art and East Princes Street Gardens are both readily available for all. As part of our major redevelopment, we have created a new, accessible path. This makes it much easier for everyone to explore the Gardens. It also enables visitors to enter the Scottish National Gallery via the Gardens level and enjoy our new shopping and catering offer.”

Notes to editors

Once construction of the new gallery spaces is completed in 2021, the Gardens entrance will become the main point of entry for the Scottish National Gallery, offering instant access to the world’s largest collection of Scottish art.

In August, a refreshed The Scottish Cafe & Restaurant opened its doors, revealing stylish new interiors and a delicious menu using the best Scottish produce. 

All purchases from the gallery shops help the National Galleries of Scotland continue their work to care for, develop, research and display the national collection of Scottish and international a

3 October 2019 

A DAZZLING END TO NOW: HUMANITY, TIME AND THE COSMOS

Don’t miss the sixth and final instalment of the ground-breaking NOW Series – featuring dazzling work about the relationship of humankind to the cosmos and time. It includes the first major showing in Scotland of Scottish artist, Katie Paterson, whose incredible works are made possible through extensive collaborations with scientists, specialists, writers and others in the forefront of their fields. She translates complex ideas into physical, often poetic, works of art.

This exhibition will premiere a completely new moving image work by Paterson, commissioned especially for NOW by the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) with support from the Future Library Trust. This new piece relates to the artist’s extraordinary and expansive 100-year-work, Future Library 2014-2114. For Future Library Paterson has planted a forest in Norway, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in 2114. From 2014 until then, one writer a year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust (unread and unpublished), until the hundred years has passed. The manuscripts will be stored in a specially designed room in the new Oslo Public Library. Writers to date include Margaret Atwood (2014), David Mitchell (2015), Sjón (2016), Elif Shafak (2017), and Han Kang (2018).

The exhibition will also include Paterson’s work Totality (2016): a large scale mirror ball created from almost all known images of solar eclipses ever captured; Light Bulb to Simulate Moonlight (2008): 289 bulbs providing a lifetime’s supply of moonlight based on the average lifespan of a human and Ara (2016): a string of festoon lights in which each bulb produces a luminosity relative to the brightness of each star in a constellation.

Born in Glasgow, and a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art and Slade School of Fine Art, London, Paterson is considered one of the leading artists of her generation with an extensive international reputation. Her works are the result of long periods of research and involve collaborating with specialists in scientific and other fields. Paterson was the first Artist in Residence at the Physics and Astronomy Department, University College London in 2014. The resulting spectacular artworks are a stunning conduit for intricate ideas across a range of disciplines.

NOW will trace Paterson’s exploration of deep time, the cosmos and the place of humans in relation to these phenomena – themes that have been central to the artist’s work for more than a decade. Delving into the theme of time further will be artists Darren Almond, Shona Macnaughton and Lucy Raven.

Darren Almond is a British Artist who in 2005 was shortlisted for the Turner Prize. He was born August 1971 in Appley Bridge, Lancashire and studied fine arts at Winchester School of Art. He works in a variety of media including photography, film, installation, sculpture and painting. NOW will focus on his evocative series Fullmoon, a collection of long exposure photographs made by the light of the full moon. Time is a central aspect of the creation and subject of these ethereal works.

Shona Macnaughton is an artist based in Glasgow who completed her MFA at Edinburgh College of Art in 2009. Her practice is rooted in performance, writing and film, as well as questions of technology, subjectivity and labour. Her work is responsive to the political conditions around specific architectures, which can be both physical and virtual spaces. Progressive 2017 brings together a script, photographic documentation and props from a performance made by the artist in the east end of Glasgow in 2017. Performed when she was nine-months pregnant, the work responded to the politics of change embedded in regeneration projects, as well as the changing nature of the pregnant body.

Lucy Raven is an American artist born in Tuscon in 1977 with a BFA in studio art and a BA in art history from the University of Arizona and an MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts in New York. Raven’s work focuses on animation and moving image, incorporating multiple disciplines including still photography, installation, sound and performative lecture. In her short video work The Deccan Trap, 2015, Raven animates collaged photographic images to explore image-making through time, from the prosaic computer screens and technology used to develop 3D imaging for Hollywood films, back to ancient carved reliefs, opening up questions about what and how we see.

The NOW programme is being made possible thanks to the support of the NGS Foundation, Kent and Vicki Logan, Walter Scott and Partners Limited, Robert and Nicky Wilson, Boris Yeung and Amy Ng, and other donors who wish to remain anonymous. Katie Paterson’s presentation is generously supported by the Katie Paterson Exhibition Circle (Robert Devereux, Geoff Ainsworth and Johanna Featherstone, Francis H Williams, Alistair and Susan Duff, Anthony and Jean Harrison and Chris O’Hare), and Ingleby Gallery.

Katie Paterson said: “I have visited the galleries at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art my whole life, and I’d never once imagined my artwork being shown here. This exhibition means so much to me. It brings together a decade of work spanning subjects from the colours of the early universe to the sound of music beamed from the moon. I hope it creates meaningful and lasting experiences for visitors.”

Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at NGS, said: “NOW has offered the opportunity to over half a million visitors to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to experience the incredible variety and range of work being made by some of the world’s leading artists today. We are delighted to be bringing a major show of such a key figure in contemporary art to a public institution in Scotland for the first time. NOW finishes on a triumphant high with this exhibition that features a series of works that are literally out of this world.”  

NOW is part of our new season of exhibitions opening across NGS this autumn. Look out for our exhibitions overview with details of our upcoming shows, such as  the incredible Scotland's Photograph Album: The MacKinnon Collection, an unparalleled collection of Scottish photography recently acquired and shared by NGS and the National Library of Scotland and Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance, an ambitious retrospective of the Portuguese artist’s work that brings politics to the fore.

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors

NOW is a dynamic programme of six exhibitions at the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), which brings together some of the most innovative and exciting contemporary art from the UK and beyond. It is part of NGS’s ambition to share contemporary art with a wider audience. The NOW series in total will have featured 37 artists across six exhibitions over three years.

NOW Opening Talk: Katie Paterson 'in conversation' will take place at the Scottish National Gallery on Saturday 26 October 2019 at 12-1pm.

In the Mind's Eye: NOW will take place at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One) on Tuesday 21 January at 12:45-1:15pm.
Further NOW-related events can be found via this link.

12 September 2019 

Scotland's national art collection gifted powerful Damien Hirst sculpture 

A powerful and poignant sculpture by one of the world’s leading living artists, Damien Hirst (b.1965), has been donated to Scotland’s national art collection by the artist’s business manager of two decades, Frank Dunphy, it is announced today.

Wretched War (2004) shows a poignant and moving bronze sculpture depicting a pregnant woman whose body has been fractured and decapitated. It is partly based on anatomical models, while the pose is borrowed from Edgar Degas’s famous sculpture, Nude Study for 'The 14-Year-Old Dancer' (c.1880), a bronze cast of which is in the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection. The sculpture encapsulates the theme which has been central to Damien Hirst's art: life versus death. It has been given to the National Galleries of Scotland  (NGS) through the Cultural Gifts Scheme, administered by the Arts Council, by Frank Dunphy.  

Hirst first came to public attention in 1988 when he conceived and curated Freeze, an exhibition staged in a London warehouse which featured his own work, and work by his friends and fellow Goldsmiths College students. In 1991 he gained worldwide fame when, at the Saatchi Gallery in London, he exhibited a shark preserved in formaldehyde (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living) and A Thousand Years, a vitrine containing a cow's head, maggots and flies. In these works, and ever since, Hirst has tackled the great historical themes of art: birth, life, death and the fragility of existence. 

Between 1995 and 2015 Frank Dunphy was Hirst’s business manager and financial advisor. During that time, Dunphy revolutionised the market in contemporary art. He conceived the auction sale of the artworks in Hirst’s Pharmacy restaurant at Sotheby’s in  2004 and in 2008 went further, sidestepping the traditional Gallery route and taking Hirst’s new work direct to auction. The sale at Sotheby’s in London made over £100million and changed the art world forever.  Hirst told the Wall Street Journal that “every artist should have someone like Frank.” During their professional relationship, Dunphy and his wife, Lorna, assembled a collection of Hirst’s work, including gifts from other artists and works acquired through galleries and auctions.

Frank and Lorna are long-term supporters and Patrons of NGS. Based in London and West Sussex, they have been regular visitors to Edinburgh and the NGS for more than twenty years. They have generously placed works from their collection, including Wretched War, on long-term loan to us over the years. 

Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “We are enormously grateful to Frank for gifting this incredible sculpture to the Galleries. It originally came on loan in 2007 and has been seen in many different displays over the years. It’s one of the most popular works we have. I am thrilled that our visitors can continue to see this iconic sculpture and that it finds its permanent home here.”

Speaking of the gift, Frank Dunphy said: “We have had a long association with the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art and felt that this was an appropriate home for Wretched War. We are very grateful that the Gallery, through the Cultural Gift Scheme, have accepted this work.”

Edward Harley OBE, Chairman, Acceptance in Lieu Panel said: “This arresting and thought-provoking sculpture has been at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art for over a decade, and I am delighted that it will continue to have pride of place there. I hope that this generous gift will encourage others to use the Cultural Gifts Scheme to enrich public collections throughout the UK.”

Introduction on Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst was born in Bristol in 1965 and grew up in Leeds. He studied at Goldsmiths’ College of Art, London, from 1986-89. While still a student he organised a series of exhibitions which launched the generation of artists who became known as ‘YBAs’ (Young British Artists). He won international fame when in 1991 he showed works including a shark preserved in formaldehyde (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living) at the Saatchi Gallery, London. He is the most prominent British artist of his generation.

Introduction on Frank Dunphy

Dunphy was Hirst’s financial advisor and business manager for twenty years, conceiving the celebrated Sotheby’s sales of Hirst’s work, and playing a major role in the development of the YBA art market from the mid-1990s. He was also financial advisor to artists including Rachel Whiteread and Tracey Emin. He retired in 2016. Since then, Frank and Lorna have donated major works from their collection, via the Arts Council of England’s Cultural Gifts Scheme, to Pallant House Art Gallery, in Chichester, West Sussex, and to the British Museum in London.

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors

The acceptance of this gift generates a tax reduction of £90,000 for the donor. 

Cultural Gifts Scheme

The Cultural Gifts Scheme was launched by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport in March 2013 as an important element of its expanding programme to encourage philanthropy for the arts. It is administered by the Arts Council and enables UK taxpayers to donate important objects to the nation during their lifetime. Items accepted under the Scheme are allocated to public collections and are available for all. In return, donors will receive a reduction in their income tax, capital gains tax or corporation tax liability, based on a set percentage of the value of the object they are donating: 30 per cent for individuals and 20 per cent for companies. For more information please go to the Arts Council website.

Arts Council England

Arts Council England is the national development body for arts and culture across England, working to enrich people’s lives. We support a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to visual art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. Great art and culture inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better. Between 2018 and 2022, we will invest £1.45 billion of public money from government and an estimated £860 million from the National Lottery to help create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country. artscouncil.org.uk

30 August 2019

Spellbinding surrealist painting becomes first Dorothea Tanning work acquired for Scotland's national art collection

This new addition to the collection has been purchased with assistance from the Henry and Sula Walton Fund and Art Fund.

A captivating painting by Surrealist painter Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012), created at a turning-point in her career and kept in her possession for the remainder of her exceptionally long life, has become the first of the artist’s works to enter Scotland’s national art collection, the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) are thrilled to announce today.

One of the world’s greatest collections of Surrealist art now welcomes Tableau Vivant, an outstanding painting with a rich and fascinating history. It has been purchased with help from Art Fund and the Henry and Sula Walton Fund and follows the Galleries’ acquisition of major artworks by Surrealists Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí and René Magritte. It will go on immediate display at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA).

Tableau Vivant, painted by Tanning nearly sixty years ago, featured in the artist’s first exhibition in France at the Galerie Furstenberg, Dorothea Tanning: Peintures 1949-1954 (7-30 May 1954). Tanning had inscribed the title L’Etreinte on the verso, which can be translated as ‘The Embrace’ or conversely ‘The Grip’ or ‘The Stranglehold’. A few months later it was crossed out and substituted with Tableau Vivant. Under its new title, Tableau Vivant was included in the artist’s first exhibition in Britain, at the Arthur Jeffress gallery, London in 1955.

In the late 1940s and 1950s in Paris, Tanning made her first etchings in the printmaking studio of Georges Visat. Here, she began to introduce the image of the giant dog, Katchina, who belonged to her and her husband, the Surrealist artist Max Ernst (1891-1976). Numerous Surrealist artists took animal avatars which play the role of alter-ego in their work: Ernst took a bird, Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) chose a horse; Tanning took Katchina. Unlike most artists’ avatars, Tanning’s was a specific animal – her own pet. Moreover, Katchina appears in Tanning’s work, not necessarily as an embodiment of the artist; sometimes witness, sometimes protagonist, the dog assumes different roles in different works. These pieces marked Tanning’s shift away from the meticulous, controlled, illustrative technique which was the hallmark of her Surrealist work. Instead, she began to opt for a much looser, softer, more painterly brushwork and her colour switched from bright, intense primaries to ashes and ochres.

An elliptical comment on power, love, the erotic, the humorous, the dream and the nightmare, Tableau Vivant unites key moments in the artist’s life and career. It was a painting that Tanning held very dear and it was included in virtually every major show of her work, notably her solo shows in Brussels in 1967, Paris in 1974, and the Malmö Konsthall and Camden Art Centre in 1993. She kept it for the remainder of her life until 2012, when she died at the age of 101, nearly sixty years after painting it. Towards the end of her life, she specified it as one of a small number of works reserved only for sale to a museum. It was purchased through the Alison Jacques Gallery, London.

Speaking of the acquisition, Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland said: “We’ve been looking for a major painting by Dorothea Tanning for many years. This was one of her favourite works: she kept it for more than sixty years, hanging it above her desk in her apartment in New York. It’s a stunning addition to the Galleries’ world-famous collection of Surrealist art.”

Sarah Philp, Director of Programme and Policy at Art Fund, said:  “Tableau Vivant is an astonishing work with a fascinating biography and we are proud to help National Galleries of Scotland purchase this painting for their outstanding Surrealist art collection.”

Introduction on Dorothea Tanning

Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in Gaelsburg, a provincial town in Illinois, to Swedish parents. She left home in 1930 for Chicago, and briefly attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Art but was largely self-taught, before settling in New York in 1935. The exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York the next year, had a profound effect upon her. She earned her living at the time as a commercial artist, producing magazine advertisements, but also began painting in a Surrealist manner. She visited Paris in August 1939 armed, she recalled, with letters of introduction to Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dalí, but by the time she arrived they had all fled the city ahead of the outbreak of the Second World War that September.

In 1941 Julien Levy signed Tanning on for his gallery, which specialised in Surrealist art. It was there that she came to the attention of Peggy Guggenheim who was, at the time, organising an exhibition of thirty women artists, to be held at her newly-opened Art of this Century gallery in New York. Amongst the advisors for the exhibition was Guggenheim’s then husband Max Ernst, who visited Tanning’s studio in 1942. Tanning was a late addition to the show, now titled Exhibition by 31 Women, which opened in January 1943. Ernst moved in with Tanning shortly after. Guggenheim later lamented that she should have kept the number of artists in her exhibition to thirty. When she and Ernst separated, Guggenheim recalls, ‘Max rushed downstairs and seized our dog Kachina from my arms as though she were the child in a divorce.’ Taking this Lhasa Apso terrier with him to live with Tanning, Katchina (sometimes spelt Kachina) was to become a recurrent motif in Tanning’s art, even appearing in her later works, long after the dog’s death.

First appearing in Maternity (1946-47), where she lay at the feet of a mother-and-child group and was given a child’s face, Katchina also featured sporadically in other paintings from around that time. Across 1953-54, however, Katchina featured prominently in almost every one of Tanning’s works. In a 1953 etching, the giant dog was imaged dancing a tango with a naked woman. A second etching with aquatint, Red Drama (1954), takes the scene a step further: here the dog seems to dominate the woman. In The Blue Waltz and Tableau Vivant (both 1954) Tanning’s brushwork is looser, more painterly, and her palette is muted. These works – both the etchings and the paintings – impart a commentary on relationships and absurdity, and part of their appeal lies in their ambiguity: each presents an unclear power dynamic.

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors

Breakdown of funding for the acquisition:

Henry and Sula Walton Fund             £75,000

Art Fund                                              £60,000

National Galleries of Scotland            £70,000

TOTAL                                                            £205,000

Art Fund

Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art. In the past five years alone Art Fund has given £34 million to help museums and galleries acquire works of art for their collections. It also helps museums share their collections with wider audiences by supporting a range of tours and exhibitions, and makes additional grants to support the training and professional development of curators. Art Fund is independently funded, with the core of its income provided by 151,000 members who receive the National Art Pass and enjoy free entry to over 240 museums, galleries and historic places across the UK, as well as 50% off entry to major exhibitions and subscription to Art Quarterly magazine. In addition to grant-giving, Art Fund’s support for museums includes Art Fund Museum of the Year (won by St Fagans National History Museum near Cardiff in 2019) and a range of digital platforms.

Find out more about Art Fund and the National Art Pass at www.artfund.org

The Henry and Sula Walton Fund

Henry Walton (1924-2012) and Sula Walton (1924-2009) were prominent and highly-regarded figures in Edinburgh academia for more than fifty years. Married in 1958, they moved to Edinburgh in 1962. They worked in the field of psychiatry, Sula as a child psychiatrist at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Henry at the University of Edinburgh. Passionate about the arts, they left their art collection to the National Galleries of Scotland and also established a Fund to help support acquisitions made by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Important works by Picasso, Toyen, Carrington, Dalí and Jenny Saville have been bought with help from the Walton Fund.

12 July 2019
Outstanding Georges Seurat painting to be shown in Scotland for first time

An important painting by Post-Impressionist and Pointillist pioneer Georges Seurat (1859-1891) will soon go on display in Scotland for the first time, having been loaned to the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) from one of Europe’s most significant collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, The Courtauld Gallery, it is announced today.

Young Woman Powdering Herself, which has never previously been shown north of the border, was painted between 1888 and 1890 and is an unusual portrait depicting Seurat’s mistress Madeleine Knobloch (1868-1903). Knobloch’s identity was kept concealed even after this artwork was first exhibited in 1890, and their clandestine relationship, which included having a child together, remained a secret to all but the artist’s closest friends until after the Seurat’s premature death in 1891.

Visitors to the Scottish National Gallery have until the autumn of 2020 to view the painting, which The Courtauld has lent to the Galleries whilst the London-based institution is in the midst of a two-year transformation project, Courtauld Connects.

The Courtauld’s substantial collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art is one of the most important in Europe, thanks to the generosity of the textile tycoon Samuel Courtauld, who acquired outstanding examples of the work of Claude Monet (1840-1926), Vincent van Gogh (1853-90), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) and others during the 1920s.

Speaking about this loan, Christopher Baker, Director of European and Scottish Art and Portraiture at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “This exceptional and very generous loan provides a fascinating complement to the major Post-Impressionist paintings in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. A deeply personal portrait, executed in Seurat’s distinctive and shimmering technique, it gives a glimpse of the private bohemian world of 1880s Paris. It also demonstrates the skills of one the most experimental artists of the age, who celebrated modern subjects and so carefully calibrated every aspect of his mesmeric works.”

The National Galleries of Scotland also has an impressive Impressionist collection and Young Woman Powdering Herself will enhance the small group of Seurat works currently held in its collection. This includes two works related to the masterpiece with which the French artist made his name, The Bathers, Asnières, now in the collection of the National Gallery in London.

Even though he died tragically early at the age of just 31, Seurat was the inventor and leading exponent of the scientific style of painting known as Neo-Impressionism, whereby the paint is applied using small dots of colour, often referred to as ‘pointillism’.

Like the Impressionists, Seurat painted landscapes and modern urban subjects: people walking in the park, at the circus or at the musical hall. Unlike the Impressionists, however, Seurat preferred to work in the studio, often building up his finished compositions from a series of drawings and oil studies made out of doors. His manifesto painting, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte (Art Institute of Chicago) was exhibited at the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition in 1886, where it caused a sensation.

Seurat was interested in optical physics and was influenced by the theories of, among others, Eugène Chevreul (1786-1889), Ogden Rood (1831-1902) and Charles Henry (1859-1926). He experimented with colour contrasts and optical mixing, as well as exploring the emotional impact of colour and line.

In Young Woman Powdering Herself, Seurat has built up the composition in areas of light and shade, exploring contrasts between rounded and more angular forms. His mistress is portrayed in a humorous way, her curvaceous figure contrasted with the tiny table at which she is seated. She is applying make-up, and the painting and its laborious technique can be read as a conceit; a satire on the artifice of modern urban life.

An x-ray reveals that Seurat originally painted a face (said by some to be a self-portrait) in the frame on the wall, but was persuaded by a friend to paint it out and replace it with a vase of flowers.

Young Woman Powdering Herself joins two studies for his large-scale The Bathers, Asnières: a drawing called Seated Nude: Study for 'Une Baignade' and a small preparatory oil study of the artwork, as well as a third entitled La Luzerne, Saint-Denis, 1884-5, a larger oil painting and an excellent example of the artist’s move towards Neo-Impressionism.

The first owner of Young Woman Powdering Herself was the well-known critic and art dealer Félix Fénéon. There exists an interesting parallel with La Luzerne, which was owned by the English critic Roger Fry, one of Courtauld’s chief advisors and the man who invented the term ‘Post-Impressionism’.

The painting’s arrival also coincides with the opening of our Bridget Riley exhibition. Riley was profoundly influenced by Seurat’s work and it was her early encounters with the artist’s paintings in the Courtauld collection in the late 1950s that inspired her journey towards abstraction.

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors
Young Woman Powdering Herself by Georges Seurat will be on show at the Scottish National Gallery from the end of June until October 2020.

4 June 2019 
Beyond Realism | Dada and Surrealism from the National Galleries of Scotland

From 15 June 2019
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One)
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission FREE
#NGSBeyondRealism

Fantastical works by Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), René Magritte (1898-1967) and many others will go on show as part of an expanded display of Dada and Surrealist work opening at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Modern One (SNGMA) this June. Beyond Realism | Dada and Surrealism from the National Galleries of Scotland acts as a brilliant accompaniment to the SNGMA’s major summer exhibition Cut and Paste | 400 Years of Collage, providing insight into the time and place which formed the backdrop for so many experimental collage works of the early 20th century.

Normally displayed at Modern Two, the new room at Modern One gives the Dada and Surrealist collection twice the space, allowing visitors to appreciate the extraordinary depth, range and quality of our world-class holdings.

Founded by the poet André Breton in 1924, Surrealism was one of the most radical art movements of the 20th Century. It sought to challenge conventions through the exploration of the subconscious mind, invoking the power of dreams and elements of chance with unexpected and fantastical juxtapositions.

The germ of Surrealism lies in Dada, which sprang up in several cities almost simultaneously during the First World War. Dada artists discussed their passion for the irrational and the nonsensical in terms of a rejection of the bankrupt political, cultural and nationalistic values which, they argued, had created the war in the first place.

With over 40 works by 17 artists, Beyond Realism explores the two principal forms of Surrealist work. The first form is unpremeditated art that relies upon chance effects such as random mark-making and scraping – the type of work practiced by artists like Joan Miró (1893-1983). The second form is the creation of apparently irrational images that occurred to the mind, particularly in dreams, in a realistic style. This route was favoured by artists like Toyen (1902-1980) and Paul Delvaux (1897-1994). Other artists like Max Ernst (1891-1976) combined both approaches in their work.

The National Galleries of Scotland’s holdings of Dada and Surrealism were transformed in 1995, with the acquisition of part of the celebrated collection formed by the Surrealist artist Roland Penrose; a few months later came the bequest of Gabrielle Keiller’s magnificent collection of Dada and Surrealist art and her library of rare books and archival material. The addition of the Penrose and Keiller holdings made the Gallery’s collection of Surrealism into one of the best in the world. We have recently made several major acquisitions of works by Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Toyen, thanks to support from the Henry and Sula Walton Fund, the Art Fund and the Estate of Drue Heinz.

Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland said: “This new display will give our visitors an intimate view of one of the world’s finest collections of Dada and Surrealist art, and an opportunity to discover new additions to the National Galleries of Scotland collection, with iconic works by Dalí and Magritte. It also provides a fantastic context for the often mind-bending works explored in the accompanying exhibition at Modern Two, Cut and Paste: 400 years of Collage.”

Notes to Editors:

Cut and Paste | 400 Years of Collage
29 June – 27 October 2019
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two)
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Monday – Friday - £11 (£9 concessions)
Saturday – Sunday - £13 (£12 concessions)
#NGSCutPaste

Consisting of work by anonymous amateurs, famous artists and forgotten figures alike, Cut and Paste | 400 Years of Collage is the first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place anywhere in the world. This wide-ranging exhibition dispels the myth that collage is a 20th Century invention set in motion by cubist artists such as Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, and points to a richer and much more diverse history.

14 May 2019
Decades-spanning survey of one of the most original artists of our time to open at National Galleries of Scotland

BRIDGET RILEY
15 June – 22 September 2019
Royal Scottish Academy
The Mound, Edinburgh EH2 2EL
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Tickets: £15 to £13 (Concessions available)
25 & under: £10-£8.50 | Free for our Friends
#NGSRiley

Part of the Edinburgh Art Festival 2019

Supported by Players of the People’s Postcode Lottery and Our Friends

The work of one of the most original artists of our time will be celebrated at the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) this summer with a decades-spanning survey of the stunning paintings of Bridget Riley (b. 1931), in what will be the Galleries’ major summer and Festival blockbuster.

Over the course of a remarkable career, which has spanned seven decades, Bridget Riley has developed a unique visual language, making dazzling and compelling abstract paintings which explore the fundamental nature of our perception. Her earliest abstract works were closely associated with the emergence of Op Art, one of the last modern movements in art, which appeared in the mid- 1960s. In the following 50 years she forged a singular path, extending her means in new and ground-breaking ways, and her work has been exhibited and collected across the world. She is one of the most distinguished and internationally renowned artists working today.

Bridget Riley will be the first major survey of Riley’s work to be held in the UK for 16 years, and the largest ever Bridget Riley exhibition to be staged in Scotland. Organised by the NGS in close collaboration with the artist herself, and presented in partnership with Hayward Gallery, London, the exhibition will be shown first in Edinburgh, in the Royal Scottish Academy, from June to September 2019, before travelling to Hayward Gallery in London, where it will be shown from October 2019 until January 2020.

Through her observations of nature and the world around us, her careful study of the work of other painters – in particular Georges Seurat (1859-91), Claude Monet (1840-1926), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Henri Matisse (1859-91), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and Paul Klee (1879-1940) – and through her own sustained experimentation, Riley has made a long and penetrating investigation into the art of picture-making, and how we see. Her work explores the ways in which we learn through looking, using a purely abstract language of simple shapes, forms and colour to create sensations of light, space, volume, rhythm and movement.

This exhibition will place particular emphasis on the origins of Riley’s work, and will trace pivotal, decisive movements in her acclaimed career. It will feature early paintings and drawings, iconic black-and-white paintings of the 1960s, expansive canvases in colour, wall paintings and recent works, as well as studies that reveal Riley’s working methods.

Highlights will include early paintings inspired by the work of Georges Seurat, such as Pink Landscape (1960); Riley’s first abstract paintings, Kiss and Movement in Squares (both 1961); and other iconic works of the 1960s and 1970s, including Fission (1963) and Current (1964), from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Paean (1973) from Tokyo’s Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition will also include Drift 2 (1966), and Late Morning (1967-8) and Rise 1 (1968), both key, large-scale colour paintings first shown at the 1968 Venice Biennale, where Riley won the International Prize for painting, the first British contemporary painter to do so.

The exploration of colour’s relativity has been the driving force of Riley’s work, and the exhibition will trace the development of this interest: from her early vertical and horizontal stripe paintings; through her twist and curve paintings of the 1970s such as Persephone 2 (1970), Aubade (1975) and Clepsydra (1976); the second series of stripe paintings using her ‘Egyptian’ palette, such as Ra (1981); through to the introduction of the diagonal in the vibrantly orchestrated ‘rhomboid’ paintings and curvilinear paintings of the 2000s. Recent developments in Riley’s practice will be presented, including her re-engagement with black and white in Cascando (2015), shown with Tremor (1962), a recent series of disc paintings, entitled Measure for Measure, and a new painting made this year, Intervals 2 (2019).

A feature of the exhibition will be the bringing together of a number of key works in a series, which offer fascinating insights into how Riley has developed, as she says, through ‘the spirit of enquiry’. Riley makes many preparatory studies and drawings en-route to a painting, relying essentially upon her eye to judge the unfolding of a motif as she works, constantly making decisions about scale, format and colour, in order to arrive at the resolution of tensions and tempo which mark a completed work. As well as paths followed and developed, the exhibition will show some areas of enquiry, which the artist chose not to follow, for example, Continuum (1963/2005), her only 3 dimensional work.

The exhibition will bring together some 50 major paintings from public and private collections around the world, as well as a large number of works on paper, including a selection of works from Bridget Riley’s early years, many of which are being shown for the first time.

Speaking about the exhibition, Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the NGS, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be bringing together so many major paintings from across Riley’s long and distinguished career to show the radical development and constant creative evolution of work by an artist who has been at the forefront of the international avant-garde since the early 1960s. In pioneering such a distinctive body of work, Riley has expanded the possibilities for painting, as she has profoundly changed the way we think about – and look at – art.”

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors

Exhibition dates:

Royal Scottish Academy
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
15 June to 22 September 2019

Hayward Gallery, London
23 October 2019 to 26 January 2020

For press information about the Hayward showing, please contact: Isabelle Finn at Sutton PR at [email protected].

Survey exhibitions devoted to Riley’s work have been held at:

Hayward Gallery, London (1971)

Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (2008)

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Sydney Australia (2004-5; with tour to City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand and Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland)

Tate Britain, London, UK (2003)

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9 May 2019
Antony Gormley sculptures to be reinstalled along Edinburgh's Water of Leith

Work will begin this coming Saturday (11 May) to reinstall Turner Prize-winning artist Antony Gormley’s (b. 1950) 6 TIMES along the Water of Leith in Edinburgh. This multi-part sculptural project was originally installed in 2010, and having resolved the complications leading to the removal of four elements of the work installed in the Water of Leith itself, we are now reinstalling these sculptures in their original locations.

Commissioned by the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), 6 TIMES consists of six life-sized figures positioned between the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA) and the sea. Four of the figures are sited in the Water of Leith itself, acting as gauges for the height of the river as it swells and recedes. This enigmatic, provocative and stimulating work conveys a sense of mystery and quiet monumentality, and draws attention to the important natural environment of the Water of Leith, which runs through the heart of Edinburgh.

The first figure is located within the grounds of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA). Although a full-length cast, it is buried in the ground up to neck-level. The next figure will be reinstalled within a basin of the river immediately behind the gallery, where it will look up, out of the valley. A further three figures will be reinstalled at separate points downstream in Stockbridge, Powderhall and Bonnington, looking progressively down, right and left. The final figure, situated at the end of an abandoned pier in Leith Docks, looks out to the point where the river course finally meets the sea.

The National Galleries of Scotland has worked closely with the City of Edinburgh Council to resolve the issues relating to the removal of elements of 6 TIMES in 2012, and has received permission to reinstall the four sculptures at Cauldron Weir, Stockbridge, Powderhall and Bonnington.

Modifications have been made to the fixings so that the sculptures are now permanently fixed to their mounts. The original design allowed them to tilt and submerge when the river flow reached certain levels.

Work will be undertaken by Caldive Ltd., expert marine contractors, and is due to be completed by early summer 2019.

A number of stakeholders have been consulted during the re-installation process including: Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Local Wildlife Crime Officers, City of Edinburgh Council, The Honorary Water Bailiffs of the Water of Leith and the Water of Leith Conservation Trust to ensure that works will be undertaken with as little disruption to the environment as possible. 

The reinstallation of 6 TIMES was made possible by an anonymous supporter who recognises the Work’s importance to the city of Edinburgh. 

The National Galleries of Scotland will cover costs associated with conservation and debris maintenance. 

Antony Gormley said: “It was a privilege to make these works for Edinburgh and now they are coming back to stay — I’m delighted”.

Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland said: “We are thrilled to announce the reinstallation of Antony Gormley’s 6 TIMES, which captured the imagination of so many locals and visitors alike when it was first installed in 2010. We are extremely grateful to Antony, his studio, Edinburgh City Council and everyone else who has played such an active part in ensuring the success of the project. This is a meditative and reflective work, which brings art out into the wider community along Edinburgh’s beautiful Water of Leith”.

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors

Artwork credit:
Antony Gormley (b. 1950)
6 TIMES, 2010
Six cast iron figures, each 191 x 50 x 36 cm
Commissioned by the National Galleries of Scotland, with support from the Art Fund, The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, The Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland, Claire Enders and The Henry Moore Foundation
Permanent installation, Water of Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland
Photograph by Keith Hunter
© The artist

Artist’s Biography

Born in London in 1950, Antony Gormley has had a number of solo shows at venues including Uffizi Gallery, Florence (2019); the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2019); Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2018); the Long Museum, Shanghai (2017); National Portrait Gallery, London (2016); Forte di Belvedere, Florence (2015); Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2014); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (2012); Deichtorhallen Hamburg; State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2010); Hayward Gallery, London (2007); Kunsthalle zu Kiel; Malmö Konsthall (1993); and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen (1989). A major solo exhibition of his work will be presented at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in September 2019. Permanent public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands) Chord(MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA). He has also participated in major group shows such as the Venice Biennale and Documenta 8, Kassel, Germany. Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994 and has been a member of the Royal Academy since 2003. He was made an Officer of the British Empire in 1997 and knighted in 2014.

For further details see: http://www.antonygormley.com

5 May 2019
First survey exhibition of collage ever to take place anywhere in the world at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Cut and Paste | 400 Years of Collage
29 June – 27 October 2019
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two)
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DS
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Monday – Friday - £11 (£9 concessions)
Saturday – Sunday - £13 (£12 concessions)
#NGSCutPaste

Consisting of work by anonymous amateurs, famous artists and forgotten figures alike, Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage is the first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place anywhere in the world. This wide-ranging exhibition dispels the myth that collage is a 20th-Century invention set in motion by cubist artists such as Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, and points to a richer and much more diverse history.

The word ‘Collage’ comes from the French verb ‘coller’, meaning ‘to glue’, and it is often associated with cut-and-pasted paper, photographs, newspaper cuttings, string etc. However, with Cut and Paste, curator Patrick Elliott sets out to challenge traditional definitions, and expand our understanding of collage, both in visual art and as a practice that has influenced all forms of creativity in the 20th Century, from literature to punk.

Cut and Paste presents a huge range of styles, techniques and approaches – spanning a period of more than four centuries and including more than 250 works. From sixteenth-century anatomical ‘flap prints’, to computer-generated images; from collages by children to revolutionary cubist masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris; from nineteenth-century do-it-yourself collage kits to Cindy Sherman’s playful collage film Doll Clothes (1975). Highlights of the exhibition include a three-metre-long folding collage screen, purportedly made in part by Charles Dickens; a major group of Dada and Surrealist collages, by artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Joan Miró, Hannah Höch and Max Ernst; Henri Matisse’s exquisite Jazz series; and post-war works by Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Nevelson, Andy Warhol and Peter Blake, including source material for the cover of the Beatles’ album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The importance of collage as a form of protest in the 1960s and ’70s will be shown in the work of feminist artists such as Carolee Schneemann (her Body Collage film, 1967, shows her covered in wallpaper paste and leaping about in shredded paper), Penny Slinger, Nancy Grossman, Annegret Soltau and Cindy Sherman; punk artists, such as Jamie Reid, whose original collages for the first Sex Pistols’ album and posters will feature; and the famously subversive collages of Monty Python founder Terry Gilliam. The exhibition also features the legendary library book covers which the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell doctored with collages, and put back on Islington Library’s shelves – a move which landed them both in prison for six months. Collage’s ability to juxtapose seemingly disparate images and ideas accords perfectly with the role of political tool, with artists such as Linder and Hannah Wilke revisiting and reinventing the traditional female pursuits of cutting, pasting, stitching and patchwork (represented in Cut and Paste in Victorian-era works by Kate Gough, Sarah Eliza Pye and many others) to create subversive and highly political artworks.

Cut and Paste highlights the playful, experimental nature of collage, finding antecedents to the absurdist creations of Dada and Surrealist artists in the scrapbooks and crazy collages of 19th-century amateurs. The process of manipulating, swapping, lifting and testing to create unexpected and sometimes bizarre images runs right through the exhibition, from Mary Watson’s puzzling collage scrapbook of engravings, handwritten notes and fragmented words cut out from newspapers (1821); to Kate Gough’s Gough Album (1875-80), in which the artist stuck portrait photographs of bewhiskered Victorian gentlemen onto a watercolour of apes in response to Darwin’s recently published theories on evolution; to Sarah Eliza Pye’s exquisite Crazy Patchwork (1897); to Hannah Höch’s weird, hybrid figures, Hausmann’s satirical, cut-and-paste portraits and Max Ernst’s dreamlike collages. Cut and Paste also features work by children, including a child’s bedroom door, covered with stickers, and Elsie Wright and Frances Griffith’s famous Cottingley Fairy photographs, in which the two girls copied book illustrations, added wings, and collaged the fairies onto themselves, for a time unintentionally duping the world into believing in fairies. These works form part of a section on photography and the vogue for ‘composite’ images in the Victorian period.

Cut and Paste demonstrates how collage continues to inspire artists working today and includes recent collage works by Adrian Ghenie, Deborah Roberts, Chantal Joffe, Christian Marclay, Jake and Dinos Chapman and many others. Owing to the fragility of much of the work, the exhibition will not tour: it can only be seen in Edinburgh, at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland said: Cut and Paste is, surprisingly, the first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place anywhere in the world. Collage has a rich and varied history that is not often told: it embraces cut-and-pasted paper, photography, film, patchwork, modern-day stickers and computerised Photoshop – Cut and Paste explores this highly creative, utterly subversive and often overlooked art form in a way that it has never been explored before. And you can only see it in Edinburgh!

Laura Chow, Head of Charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said: We are excited that players of People’s Postcode Lottery are supporting the first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place in Britain and that their support has enabled the National Galleries of Scotland to realise this ambitious project.

Notes to Editors:
Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage is part of the Edinburgh Art Festival 2019.
Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage will be accompanied by an exhibition book: Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage, available for purchase in all National Galleries of Scotland shops or online.

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• It costs £10 a month to play and winning postcodes are announced every day. The maximum amount a single ticket can win is 10% of the draw proceed. For details, please visit www.postcodelottery.co.uk/prizes
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Beyond Realism 15 June – October 2020
Scottish Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One)
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission FREE
#NGSBeyondRealism
A brilliant accompaniment to Cut and Paste and running for the entire length of the exhibition (and beyond), this display will bring together some of the finest examples of Surrealist art from the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection. Featuring works by artists such as Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, Beyond Realism will present the Surrealism collection in an expanded display at Modern One, providing an opportunity to view our world-famous collection in greater depth.
Artists mentioned in this press release:
Adrian Ghenie (b.1977) Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987) Annegret Soltau (b. 1946) Carolee Schneemann (1939 – 2019) Chantal Joffe (b. 1969) Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) Christian Marclay (b. 1955) Cindy Sherman (b. 1954) Deborah Roberts (b. 1962) Frances Griffith (1907–1986) Hannah Höch (1889 - 1978) Hannah Wilke (1940 - 1993) Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954) Jake and Dinos Chapman (b. 1966 and 1962) Jamie Reid (b. 1947) Joan Miró (1893 - 1983) Joe Orton (1933 - 1967) and Kenneth Halliwell (1926 – 1967) Juan Gris (1887 - 1927) Kate Gough (1856 – 1948) Kurt Schwitters (1887 - 1948) Linder (b. 1954) Louise Nevelson (1899 - 1988) Max Ernst (1891 - 1976) Nancy Grossman (b. 1940) Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) Penny Slinger (b. 1947) Peter Blake (b. 1932) Robert Rauschenberg (1925 - 2008) Sarah Eliza Pye (1857-1934) and Elsie Wright (1901 - 1988) Terry Gilliam (b. 1940)

- ENDS –

30 April 2019
Spectacular installation of 10,000 fresh red roses to take centre stage at new contemporary art exhibition

Press View: Friday 31 May 2019, 10:00-11:30hrs
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One), Edinburgh.

Supported by the Henry Moore Foundation and Fluxus.

NOW featuring
ANYA GALLACCIO
PELES EMPIRE
ANYA GALLACCIO
CHARLES AVERY
AURELIEN FROMENT
ROGER HIORNS
ZINEB SEDIRA
1 June – 22 Sep 2019
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One)
75 Belford Road, Edinburgh EH4 3DR
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission FREE
#NGSNow

A spectacular installation of 10,000 fresh red roses which wilt over time are set to stimulate visitor’s senses as the centrepiece of an entralling new exhibition this summer at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA) in Edinburgh.

NOW is a dynamic three-year programme of six exhibitions at the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), which brings together some of the most innovative and exciting contemporary art from the UK and beyond.

For the fifth instalment, which opens on 1 June, Anya Gallacio’s iconic sculpture Red on Green - in which 10,000 fresh blooms are left to decay over a period of months - will be shown as part of a major survey of the artist’s work. Gallaccio was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2003 and is one of the UK’s most prominent artists, emerging from the group known as the Young British Artists (YBAs) in the 1990s. She is renowned for her use of organic materials, from which she creates temporary works that change over time as they are subjected to natural processes of transformation and decay.

For a short while Red on Green, which was first made in 1992, is a gorgeous and enticing display of velvety flowers, but during the course of the exhibition, this display gradually decays, transforming into something different altogether.The Paisley-born artist will also present a series of existing pieces and new works specially commissioned for NOW which further explore her fascination with the effects of time on her materials.

Exploring other threads on the theme of transformation, NOW will also feature the work of British artists Roger Hiorns (b.1975) and Charles Avery (b. 1973); French artist Aurélien Froment (b. 1976) and French-Algerian artist Zineb Sedira (b.1963); and a newly commissioned installation from Peles Empire, a collaborative project created by the artists Katharina Stöver (b. 1982) and Barbara Wolff (b. 1980).

As in previous years, there will be a family-friendly play area in the beautiful grounds of Modern One for visitors to the exhibition.

Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at NGS, said: “From the smell and sight of 10,000 red roses slowly decaying to an exploration of our obsession with sugar, NOW 5 offers new ways of seeing and thinking for everyone curious about the world around them. We want to create a playful, anarchic, thought-provoking experience for visitors, so expect to see the use of rope, ceramics, x-ray machines, sugar, obsidian, photography and live performances.

“We’re a place for art-lovers, the curious, experience-seekers and families. We’ll have our temporary playpark for children once again over the summer period next to the spectacular Landform by the artist Charles Jencks, so we are a great free day out for everyone”.

Roger Hiorns works with a range of media and unlikely materials to create surprising transformations of existing or ‘found’ objects, including a decommissioned X-Ray machine, a jet engine and an ordinary park bench, which will be intermittently ‘activated’ through the presence of a naked man and a small fire. Alongside these sculptures Hiorns will present a series of works on panels and canvas. These works resemble paintings but are actually made from varying materials, including copper sulphate crystals and bovine brain matter, the latter exploring themes around BSE, or ‘mad cow disease’. These works are on one side extremely beautiful, sparkling shards of blue crystal and on the other, defiantly ugly, with abstract brown brush strokes of diluted brain matter smeared across the panel.

Aurélien Froment, who is now based in Edinburgh, works with books, performances, video, photography and objects, creating multi-layered works which often reference feature films, early film technology and literature. He will be showing two new works here: The Apocalypse, a film collaboration with the Canadian poet Steven McCaffrey which documents the deterioration of France’s oldest surviving medieval tapestry, the Tapestry of Angers (which famously depicts scenes from the biblical Book of Revelation); and One, an installation comprised of a 200-metre length of rope which changes colour imperceptibly from one end of the spectrum to the other.

In 2004 Charles Avery embarked on a project called The Islanders, a painstakingly detailed and diverse description of the flora, fauna and culture of an imaginary island, which Avery vividly conjures into life through drawings, paintings, sculptures and texts. NOW will present a sculptural installation and accompanying 16mm film by Avery, which follows the flight of the one of the island’s curious creatures - the Dihedra – an ephemeral butterfly-like being that cannot be contained by the boundaries of the physical world. This fascinating installation was recently acquired by the NGS, and is being shown here for the first time.

Zinebs Sedira uses photography, film and installations to explore language, memory and history. In NOW, Sedira exhibits a selection of photographs from her Sugar Routes and Sugar Surfaces series, which highlight the massive scale of the sugar industry by exploring the way sugar is produced, distributed and consumed. These images, which show new ‘landscapes’ - mountains of sugar in siloes and warehouses - will be exhibited alongside cast-sugar sculptures which touch on the dark history of human displacement, slave labour and colonisation that underlie this global business.

Katharina Stöver and Barbara Wolff’s ongoing collaborative project Peles Empire will have its latest showing in NOW. The duo will transform a room at the SNGMA into an installation that fuses photocopied imagery of the remarkable interiors of the nineteenth-century Peles Castle in Romania, with parts of the building here, creating an immersive environment in which the original and the copy are intertwined and blurred.

The NOW programme is being made possible thanks to the support of the NGS Foundation, Kent and Vicki Logan, Walter Scott and Partners Limited, Robert and Nicky Wilson, The Henry Moore Foundation, Fluxus and other donors who wish to remain anonymous.

—ENDS—
 

25 April 2019
Scottish National Gallery development East Princes Street Gardens works update

East Princes Street Gardens, where a new accessible path and landscaping are being created by the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), and the Mound precinct are scheduled to re-open to the public in time for the start of the 2019 Festival in August.

A refurbished Scottish Café & Restaurant, which is housed within the Princes Street Gardens level of the Scottish National Gallery, will also open its doors to customers at the same time.

The work in East Princes Street Gardens is part of a wider redevelopment project by NGS that will transform former office, storage and display spaces in the Scottish National Gallery into a new world-class set of galleries that, for the first time, will be entered directly from the adjacent East Princes Street Gardens. They will showcase NGS’s amazingly rich collection of historic Scottish art, which contains masterpieces by Sir Henry Raeburn, The Glasgow Boys, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Scottish Colourists, as well as giving direct access to the rest of the Scottish National Gallery’s international collection. The project is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Scottish Government.

The new accessible path will greatly help those with mobility impairments, wheelchairs and prams. Without this new path, the east gardens would remain accessible only via steep gradients or the flight of stairs.

The creation of the path and the landscaping has been a complex engineering feat which has taken slightly longer than programmed. The intention was to complete the works by Spring 2019 and the NGS team and contractors have been working very hard to complete the works as close to that as possible.

After the summer the construction works are largely focused on the interior and grounds of the Scottish National Gallery. The public will have access into East Princes Street Gardens and the Mound precinct as normal. To enable excavation works to the galleries directly beneath, the Playfair Steps and walkway, at the rear of the Scottish National Gallery, will continue to be closed for the duration of the building work.

The Edinburgh Marathon in May will still run through East Princes Street Gardens and the Mound precinct as a route will be cleared for them to use. 

As previously announced, 22 trees will be planted around the new accessible path as part of the construction works. These trees will be between 4.5 metres and 6.5 metres in height.

NGS has also been working closely with Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust and the City of Edinburgh Council on the planting of a further 30 trees in other areas of East Princes Street Gardens, West Princes Street Gardens, Lauriston Castle and Saughton Walled Garden. The Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust and the City of Edinburgh Council Parks department led on the selection and planting of the additional 30 trees.

John Leighton, Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland said: ‘I want to extend a big thank you to the residents and visitors of Edinburgh during the construction works in East Princes Street Gardens. We apologise for any inconvenience and we appreciate you bearing with us whilst we make these transformative changes.

‘As previously announced, the overall project is on schedule to be complete in early 2021. By then we will be ready to reveal an amazing new suite of galleries, bursting with light and colour with new views out into Princes Street Gardens. Previously only one in six visitors found their way to the dark and tucked away Scottish Galleries, so this will transform the presentation of the world’s greatest collection of Scottish art.’

-ENDS-

Notes to Editor:

The vision for the SNG project has been driven by the National Galleries’ ambition to ensure that the widest number of people can enjoy our art and activities. The displays in the new galleries will be directly informed by extensive research into the needs of existing and potential audiences.

For the first time in a generation, there will be new displays drawn from the Scottish and international collection. This fresh approach will allow us to say much more about Scotland’s art and to highlight the international significance of pioneering figures such as Allan Ramsay, Gavin Hamilton, Sir David Wilkie and Phoebe Anna Traquair.

The scope of the new displays, which will be revealed when the new galleries open in early 2021, will also be broader, encompassing the work of early 20th-century artists such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Stanley Cursiter, Jessie M. King, Phyllis Mary Bone and the Scottish Colourists S J Peploe and F C B Cadell.

The project will create a beautiful new space in the heart of Edinburgh, which will be free for everyone to use and enjoy. A series of large windows will punctuate the façade and fill the galleries with light and colour, and offer spectacular views over East Princes Street Gardens. Extensive new landscaping in the gardens will radically improve access to this much-loved part of the city, and the project will also create a larger shop, brand-new café and more accessible restaurant.

Specific activities on completion of the project include a dedicated family day one day a week, more volunteers in the galleries to connect visitors with our new offer and new audience-focused interpretation.

The SNG redevelopment has been designed by one of Scotland’s leading architectural practices, Hoskins Architects, which has been widely praised for a number of high-profile designs in the arts and cultural sector.

A fly-through animation of the Scottish National Gallery Project is available to view here.

Read more on the Scottish National Gallery Project changes on our website here.

Funding figures from Scottish Government and National Lottery Heritage Fund:
Scottish Government: £5.5 million.
National Lottery Heritage Fund: £4.94 million.

18 April 2019
National Galleries of Scotland and Victoria and Albert Museum purchase spectacular Zucchi portrait of architect James Adam

The National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) have jointly acquired the most ambitious and splendid surviving portrait of a member of the Adam family, the great eighteenth-century Scottish architectural dynasty.

The portrait of James Adam (1732-94) by the Italian artist Antonio Zucchi (1726-95) becomes the third outstanding artwork to be jointly-acquired by the V&A and NGS after together securing two exceptional sculptures, Antonio Canova’s The Three Graces (purchased 1994) and Lorenzo Bartolini’s The Campbell Sisters (purchased 2015). The Zucchi portrait has been purchased thanks to a major grant from national charity Art Fund.

The newly acquired portrait of James Adam will be shown among the great eighteenth-century collection at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (SNPG), Edinburgh before going on display in the V&A’s British Galleries in London later this year. It will remain on display at the V&A for one year before returning to be shown in Edinburgh. Thereafter, it will be shown at each institution for a period of seven years, on rotation.

Christopher Baker, Director of European and Scottish Art and Portraiture for the National Galleries of Scotland, commented: “James Adam’s portrait is a work of great swagger and refinement that demonstrates the confidence of the Scottish Adam family as seminal taste makers for eighteenth-century Europe. It represents a splendid addition to the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland and we are immensely grateful to both the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Art Fund for making its joint purchase possible.”

Julius Bryant, Keeper of Word and Image at The Victoria and Albert Museum, said: “Zucchi’s portrait of James Adam depicts one of the leading Scottish exponents of the European Neoclassical movement who played a formative role in developing British architecture. It is an ideal portrait for the Neoclassicism section of the V&A’s British Galleries. We are delighted that it joins the V&A’s collection, together with the two sculptures previously purchased with the National Galleries of Scotland. We are enormously grateful to both the NGS and Art Fund for enabling this joint acquisition.”

Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Art Fund, added: “We are very pleased to be helping both National Galleries Scotland and the V&A in acquiring this fine and important portrait of James Adam. It is fitting addition to both collections, marking the sitter’s legacy as a highly influential Scotsman with great significance to the history of British architecture and design, and we know it will enjoyed by a wide public in both locations.”

The painting depicts James Adam during his grand tour of Italy in 1763, before he returned to London to work with his brother, Robert Adam (1728-92). Dramatically posed and luxuriously dressed, he is surrounded by objects that refer to the study of the ancient world that inspired the neo-classical designs for which the Adam were renowned.

Robert and James Adam, along with their brothers John and William, were the sons of the mason-architect and entrepreneur William Adam (1689-1748). Together the family enjoyed the status of being Scotland’s foremost architects of the eighteenth century. Their role as designers of neo-classical buildings and interiors was to prove profoundly influential not only in Edinburgh and London but all across Europe, North America and Russia.

Robert and James established their architectural practice in 1758. They not only excelled at designing elegant Palladian buildings but also entire interior decorative schemes, including furniture, so ensuring a unity to their immensely popular neo-classical vision. Between 1773 and 1779 the brothers published The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam which played a key role in spreading knowledge of their work internationally.

James undertook a Grand Tour of Italy, to seek inspiration for his work, between 1760 and 1763. This impressive portrait was painted in the final year of his tour. It refers to his profession as an architect, and sees him hold dividers in one hand and paper in the other. However, he is also presented as a man of wealth and discrimination, dressed in a silk and fur trimmed gown, at ease with his knowledge of the remains of the classical world that surround him. This type of magnificent portraiture was commonly associated with travelling aristocrats, rather than architects.

The portrait has the distinction of being the only known work of such a subject by the painter Zucchi, who was born in Venice and later worked on a number of decorative paintings for major interior schemes designed by the Adam brothers, before marrying the painter Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807) in 1781 and settling with her in Rome.

The sculptures depicted in the painting behind James include the Medici Vase and a variant of the Giustiniani Minerva – revered examples of ancient art which could be studied in Rome and, it was felt, could inspire contemporary design. Panels of so-called grotesque ornament frame the niche in which Minerva stands.

The most significant object depicted is the capital (the sculpted top of a column) in the foreground, on which James rests his left arm. It looks at first like a work from antiquity, but is in fact taken from a sculpture design by James Adam. While in Italy he made detailed plans for re-building the Houses of Parliament in London in a neo-classical style, a project that was never realised. As part of this scheme, he produced detailed drawings for a new British architectural order of columns, and combined on them the Scottish unicorn (clearly visible here) with an English lion. The drawings he made were used as the basis for creating a model made of wax that was coloured bronze – and it is this object, which sadly no longer survives, that is depicted by Zucchi. It acted as an extraordinary advertisement for Adam’s ingenuity as a designer and through the prominence of the unicorn, reminded his clientele of his Scottish heritage.

Until now James Adam has only been represented in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland through a modest and informal drawing by Allan Ramsay (1713-84), while Robert Adam is the subject of two paste medallions by James Tassie (1735-99).

Zucchi’s unique painted portrait complements his work as an engraver and decorative painter held in the V&A’s collection.

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors
The portrait of James Adam has been acquired for £480,000. The purchase price was raised with £150,000 from the Art Fund, with the remaining contributions from the V&A and NGS.

About the V&A:
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance with collections unrivalled in their scope and diversity, spanning 5000 years of human creativity. It was established in 1852 to make works of art available to all and to inspire British designers and manufacturers. Today, its purpose is to champion creative industry, inspire the next generation, and spark everyone’s imagination.

vam.ac.uk

Art Fund

Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art. In the past five years alone Art Fund has given £34 million to help museums and galleries acquire works of art for their collections. It also helps museums share their collections with wider audiences by supporting a range of tours and exhibitions, and makes additional grants to support the training and professional development of curators. Art Fund is independently funded, with the core of its income provided by 151,000 members who receive the National Art Pass and enjoy free entry to over 240 museums, galleries and historic places across the UK, as well as 50% off entry to major exhibitions and subscription to Art Quarterly magazine. In addition to grant-giving, Art Fund’s support for museums includes Art Fund Museum of the Year (won by Tate St Ives in 2018) and a range of digital platforms.

Find out more about Art Fund and the National Art Pass at www.artfund.org

1 April 2019
Audrey Grant, Norman McBeath and Val McDermid star in new exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery​

THE LONG LOOK
25 May – 27 October 2019
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission FREE
#NGSLongLook

The private world of portrait making is revealed in a beguiling new exhibition opening this spring at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The Long Look – The Making of a Portrait explores the creative collaboration that grew between Edinburgh-based artists Audrey Grant (b.1964) and Norman McBeath (b.1952), and the award winning crime-writer Val McDermid (b.1955), when Audrey asked Norman and Val to sit for portraits.

Audrey Grant began to draw photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath in charcoal at her studio in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh in December 2015. Audrey would create a portrait drawing of Norman over many sittings – the process could take weeks, months or even years, because at the end of each sitting Audrey would erase her work. This fascinating long-term aspect of Audrey’s practice allows her to get under the skin of her subject – looking anew with each sitting, seeking to evoke a sense of the sitter’s presence, and constantly creating and destroying what has come before.

Describing this process, Audrey said: “The charcoal, the eraser and the rag enabled this process, allowing me to constantly apply, remove, reapply, find and re-find, while leaving the ghosts of erased images. These, in turn, will give essential weight to the final version of the drawing.”

Audrey asked Norman to photograph the drawing at the end of each session to chart her progress. Norman soon became fascinated by the way Audrey was working, which led him to create photographs of the process as a reflection on his experience of sitting for a portrait – the paint-spattered surfaces of her studio, her charcoal covered hands, the chair on which he sat for hours.

Speaking about the process, Norman said: “I became fascinated by the sheer physicality of Audrey’s drawing: the constant back and forth to the easel, the scrapes, rubs and wipes of the charcoal and cloth on the paper, the sharp snap of a new piece of black willow…From my static position, unable to see anything of the front of the easel, I found myself trying to interpret this information as a way of imagining the progress of the portrait.”

The Long Look features the drawings, photographs and objects that Audrey and Norman produced during sittings, giving us a unique opportunity to explore the art of portraiture, and what it means to really look at another person.

In addition to two portraits of Norman, Audrey also completed two charcoal portraits of the award-winning crime writer Val McDermid. Much like Norman, Val found that the many sittings over a long period inspired her own creative practice. Sessions with Audrey allowed Val time to let her mind roam, exploring thoughts and ideas that might otherwise have been crowded out by her busy life.

Speaking about her experience, Val said: “It’s a gift in my busy life to have two hours where no distraction is permitted. And letting go of the immediate need to deal with any one of the many demands on my time allows my mind to range randomly far and wide. It’s a chance for my subconscious to make itself heard, and the end result is all sorts of sparky creative moments.”

The Long Look gives visitors a unique opportunity to explore the nature and intimacy of portraiture and places you in close proximity to the various and subtle layers of looking and building a dialogue which occur as part of the process of making a portrait, in this case through drawing and photography.

Speaking about the exhibition, Deputy Director & Chief Curator of Portraiture at the National Galleries of Scotland, Imogen Gibbon said: “The Long Look is unlike anything displayed before at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and presents an unmissable opportunity to explore portraiture at its core. The work on display shows portraiture at its most compelling in that it hides nothing and discloses everything."

Notes to Editors:

The Long Look will be taking place as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival.

The Long Look will be accompanied by an exhibition book: The Long Look: The Making of a Portrait, available for purchase in all National Galleries of Scotland shops or online.

The Long Look-related events can be found via this link here.

—ENDS—

26 March 2019
Monumental self-portrait by important Scottish artist to star in new display at National Galleries of Scotland

A large, powerful self-portrait by one of the finest and most singular Scottish artists of the 20th century has been acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), where it will go on display for the first time this week. Womb from Womb by William Crosbie (1915-99), will be included in the Modern Portrait display, which re-opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh on Saturday 30 March.

Painted in 1941, in a style which reflects the artist’s interest in international surrealism, Womb from Womb was the most ambitious painted portrait of the artist’s career, and is a major addition to the national collection’s already-outstanding series of 20th-century Scottish self-portraits.

The impressive painting joins a significant group of Crosbie’s works in the NGS collection, which include drawings and paintings of figurative and abstract subjects. It has been purchased from the artist’s estate via the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, in what is the twentieth year since the artist’s passing at the age of 84.

William (Bill) Crosbie is one of the most respected Scottish painters of the 20th century. His work is represented in many major Scottish museums and galleries, the British Museum in London, and in private collections throughout the United Kingdom and abroad.

He was born to Scottish parents in Hankow in China, where his father was an engineer working on a harbour on the Yangtze River. The family moved to Glasgow in 1926 and Crosbie studied at the Glasgow Academy and Glasgow School of Art. He won a number of scholarships, including the Haldane Travel Scholarship in 1935.

Crosbie travelled to Paris in 1937 and enrolled there in the influential French art school, the École des Beaux-Arts, where he became familiar with the latest trends in European painting, most especially the work of artists such as Fernand Léger (1881-1955) and Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). He stayed in the city for two years and would later describe his time studying under Léger as, “one of my proudest experiences”.

At the end of his scholarship, Crosbie ventured to Egypt to work with the Royal Archaeological Institute on an expedition to the newly-excavated Temple of the Bulls and Temple of Saqqara, the burial grounds for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. There, Crosbie copied the four thousand year old friezes on the temple walls.

The artist returned to Scotland in 1939 and found work painting murals (including for the Festival of Britain in 1951), altarpieces, book illustrations and scenery designs for the ballet. Initially setting up a studio on 12 Ruskin Lane in Glasgow, Crosbie found himself the centre of what he once described as ''a little local Renaissance'', which included contemporaries such as the painter J D Fergusson (1874-1961), poet Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978), playwright James Bridie (1888-1951) and architect Basil Spence (1907-76). He was later elected a member of the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) and throughout his life, regularly exhibited with the Royal Glasgow Institute.

Crosbie painted Womb from Womb during the Second World War, in 1941. It is a monumental self-portrait demonstrating Crosbie’s increasing interest in surrealism. The painting was made five years after the International Surrealist Exhibition in London, which was hugely influential on the art of many English and Scottish painters. Such surrealist work was however a rarity among the relative conservatism of the Scottish art scene of the period, and so demonstrates Crosbie’s innovative and highly inventive outlook.

Womb from Womb was an outstanding inclusion in the exhibition A New Era, organised by the National Galleries of Scotland in 2017.

Christopher Baker, Director, European and Scottish Art and Portraiture at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “Crosbie’s impressive self-portrait is a significant addition to the National Galleries’ unrivalled collection of Scottish art. It’s a complex and thought-provoking work which combines three fascinating elements – the artist himself, glimpses of his wartime studio, and an intriguing painting in progress on the easel. With rich decorative and lighting effects and elements of spatial ambiguity, it’s an unnerving portrait that pays homage to European surrealism, but in a wholly distinctive and individual manner.”

—ENDS—

19 March 2019
Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe and Francesca Woodman exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery​

ARTIST ROOMS:
SELF-EVIDENCE – PHOTOGRAPHS BY WOODMAN, ARBUS AND MAPPLETHORPE 
6 April – 20 October 2019
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission FREE
#NGSSelfEvidence

ARTIST ROOMS: Self Evidence – Photographs by Woodman, Arbus and Mapplethorpe explores how three of the twentieth century’s most influential photographers addressed issues of self-expression, performance and truth. This new exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery includes over 40 outstanding works, from Francesca Woodman’s experimental images, to Diane Arbus’ raw, compassionate documentary photography, and the touching self-portraits that track the final years of Robert Mapplethorpe’s life.The works in ARTIST ROOMS: Self Evidence are drawn from ARTIST ROOMS, a touring collection of over 1,600 works of modern and contemporary art jointly owned by the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate on behalf of the nation. The collection is displayed across the UK through a touring programme, supported by Arts Council England, Art Fund and Creative Scotland.

Francesca Woodman (1958-81) began exploring self-expression through photography at the age of thirteen and continued to experiment and develop her practice in the following decade. From her teenage years until her early twenties (Woodman died at the age of 22) she produced an astonishing body of work in which she was simultaneously the creative force and the ultimate subject. This blurring of the lines between artist and subject is brought to the fore in the work Woodman produced while studying photography at the Rhode Island School of Design in the 1970s. Woodman worked in an abandoned house near the campus, producing thoughtfully staged photographs of herself that experimented with slow exposures, blurred movement, shadows and reflections. She further developed her practice in a year of study abroad in Italy in 1977-78, using carefully chosen locations, lighting, clothing, props and her own body to produce innovative works including the lyrical Eel Series, one of which shows the photographer positioned alongside a fish, her torso curving and echoing its circular forms. Woodman’s work exquisitely balances performance and self-exposure, paving the way for later artists who used photography to explore issues of identity, such as Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin.

ARTIST ROOMS: Self Evidence will include a very rare portfolio of original prints by Diane Arbus (1923-71), A Box of Ten Photographs (1969-1971), which Arbus produced shortly before her death by suicide in 1971. These works were carefully chosen to encapsulate the themes that obsessed Arbus, and include some of her most iconic images, such as Xmas Tree in a Living Room, in Levittown 1963, and A Jewish Giant at Home with his Parents in the Bronx, N.Y. 1970. Having been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1963, and again in 1966, for a project looking at ‘American rites, manners and customs’, Arbus was part of a new generation of documentary photographers who sought to engage with people in a bold and direct style. She began assembling A Box of Ten Photographs in the years following the 1967 exhibition New Documents at the Museum of Modern Art, New York where her photographs appeared alongside Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander. Arbus gave considerable thought to what this portfolio should be and how it should look; ultimately deciding on a clear Plexiglas box and selecting a set of ten images that date from as early as 1963. There is a particular focus on families and identity with iconic portraits such as Identical Twins, Roselle N.J.1967 featuring within the portfolio. For Arbus the ten images represented who she was as an artist and how she saw her work in the world, a legacy which became more solidified with her death in 1971.

Finally, a series of self-portraits by Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-89) explores his varying personas, as expressed for the camera, and poignantly documents his declining health, as a result of having contracted AIDS. ARTIST ROOMS: Self Evidence, will be the first exhibition of the photographer’s work to take place in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s dedicated photography space since it was established with assistance from the Robert Mapplethorpe foundation in 2012 and named in the artist’s honour. Significantly, the exhibition will be held during the 30 year anniversary of Mapplethorpe’s death. Known for his explicit imagery, particularly his portrayal of the male nude, Mapplethorpe worked at a time when the conservative backlash against the socially progressive 1960s and 1970s was at its peak. His retrospective exhibition, The Perfect Moment was so controversial in the late 1980s that one venue cancelled the show weeks before its opening, while another institution found itself at the centre of an obscenity trial. These events have often overshadowed Mapplethorpe’s work, which at its core speaks to diversity within society by showing that it is not homogenous. For his series of self-portraits Mapplethorpe shows different aspects of his own personality—from the debonair romantic in a tuxedo to the devil sprouting horns, and ultimately ends with that of a man confronting his own mortality.

Anne M. Lyden Chief Curator, Photography at the National Galleries of Scotland said: “This exhibition is an opportunity to reflect on the important contributions from each of these three artists and how they used photography to explore and express the self, while simultaneously documenting the shifting world around us. Although these photographs were made in the 1960s, 70s and 80s many of the issues being addressed are still relevant to us today. There is still a fascination with how we are seen by ourselves and others in relation to the world we live in – our self-evidence.”

Ceri Lewis, Managing Curator of ARTIST ROOMS, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland said: “This is the first time that we are presenting ARTIST ROOMS at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and we are showcasing some of the greatest photographic portraits within the ARTIST ROOMS collection by three of the twentieth century’s most influential photographers. It is particularly fitting to be able to mark the 30th anniversary of Mapplethorpe’s death with this display in the dedicated photography gallery established through the generosity of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.”

Notes to Editors:

ARTIST ROOMS
ARTIST ROOMS is a touring collection of over 1,600 works of modern and contemporary art. The collection is displayed across the UK in solo exhibitions that showcase the work of more than 40 major artists. The touring programme gives young people the chance to get involved in creative projects, discover more about art and learn new skills. Since 2009, nearly 50 million people have visited more than 180 displays at over 85 museums and galleries.

ARTIST ROOMS is jointly owned by the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. The collection was established through The d’Offay Donation in 2008, with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Art Fund, and the Scottish and British Governments. The current ARTIST ROOMS touring programme is delivered by the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate in a partnership with Ferens Art Gallery until 2019, supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Art Fund and by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland. www.nationalgalleries.org/artistrooms | www.tate.org.uk/artist-rooms | www.artistrooms.org | #ARTISTROOMS

Image credits:

1. Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), Self Portrait, 1980. Photograph, gelatine silver print on paper, 34.00 x 34.10 cm (framed: 50.80 x 40.60 cm). ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Acquired jointly through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
2. Francesca Woodman (1959-1981), Francesca Woodman - Eel Series 1977-8. Photograph, gelatine silver print on paper, 21.90 x 21.80 cm (paper 35.40 x 27.90 cm) (framed: 45.80 x 40.20 x 2.00 cm). ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Acquired jointly through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008 © Courtesy of George and Betty Woodman
3. Diane Arbus (1923-1971), The King and Queen of a Senior Citizens' Dance, N.Y.C. 1970, 1970. Photograph, gelatine silver print on paper 37.20 x 36.90 cm (framed: 50.80 x 40.60 cm). ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Acquired jointly through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
4. Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), Self Portrait, 1988. Photograph, gelatine silver print on paper, 57.70 x 48.10 cm. ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Acquired jointly through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.

—ENDS—

28 January 2019
Exhibition of work by young people opens at Scottish National Portrait Gallery​

BEINGS
2 February 2019 – 28 April 2019
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD
0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission FREE
#NGSBeings

A new exhibition of recent artwork by young people from across Scotland, which explores the many ways in which creativity can help us to understand and express our emotions, opens today at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. Beings brings together the young people from Lanarkshire, Fife, Ayrshire, Lothian and the Scottish Borders, and addresses a number of themes that have a significant impact in their lives: identity, emotional health, happiness, resilience and self-worth.

Thirteen groups, from youth clubs, schools, kinship care groups and employability projects, have run free with works from the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) collection, using them as springboards to create their own work, and their own exhibition, working closely with NGS staff to design way the Beings is laid out.

The exhibition forms a ‘mind map’ of thematic displays, in which new works made by participants are shown alongside the works in the NGS collection that inspired them. Drawings from Five Minutes about Surrealism, a film scenario by the world-famous Spanish artist Salvador Dalí (1904-89), are displayed alongside artworks by students from North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire and Edinburgh, who used techniques developed by Dalí and his fellow Surrealists to tap into the subconscious mind.

Performance videos and sculptures by young people from Works + (Galashiels) and Inverkeithing High School respond to a poignant work by Scottish contemporary artist and Turner Prize nominee Christine Borland (b.1965). Twin, hand-made, child-birth demonstration model (1997) was made by Borland to the replicate an eighteenth-century medical teaching aid she came across in her research – a hand-stitched leather and sawdust baby, which in the original enclosed a real foetal skull.

Students from Waid Academy in Anstruther were inspired by the work of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) to create a series of beautiful shadow projections, presented in a mysterious fairground booth.

All of the NGS works included in Beings were chosen to reflect the ways in which we process and understand our thoughts and feelings, each providing the young people with a different approach. Participants also explored the visually rich imagery of contemporary fashion photographer Viviane Sassen, the power of abstract art to convey complex emotions, and the attempts of the Victorian pseudo-science of phrenology to map out the human mind on the surface of the skull.

Interactive elements in the display will encourage visitors to respond to the exhibition, in much the same way Beings participants responded to works in the NGS collection. Visitors can take part in automatic drawing (a favourite Surrealist technique); find their own way around the shadows made by etched perspex artworks by lighting them up with their phones; and map their emotional journey around the exhibition using a 3-D paper phrenological head.

Beings forms part of a wider outreach program run by the National Galleries of Scotland, which aims to provide disadvantaged young people across Scotland with opportunities to develop their skills and their creativity, so they can represent their own point of view, inspired by the national art collection.

Speaking about the project, Robin Baillie, Senior Outreach Officer at NGS, said: “We wanted our participants to explore their emotions, and maybe find ways to cope with the issues that affect them. Could art help? Our idea was for participants to look at our art, and then respond spontaneously. They learned how to create art without worrying about the result, free from pressure to succeed. By doing this, they have shown that (like us all) they are vulnerable, in need of safe spaces to explore their personal and shared identities, but also that they can imagine a more joyous world of free expression and connection with others. They have produced a compelling body of work that is touching, honest and arresting. Life is strange … some of our art is strange and challenging, but the art that the young people have created for this exhibition is brave and bold, and totally unique.”

Laura Chow, head of charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said:
“It’s fantastic that so many young people from across Scotland have produced artwork for this emotive exhibition. We are delighted that the support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery has enabled the National Galleries of Scotland’s Beings project to take place.”

Notes to Editors:

People’s Postcode Lottery

• People’s Postcode Lottery manages multiple society lotteries promoted by different charities and good causes. People play with their chosen postcodes for a chance to win cash prizes. A minimum of 32% from each subscription goes directly to charities and good causes across Great Britain and internationally -- players have raised £382 million so far. For details of the charities and good causes which are promoting and benefitting from the lottery draws, please visit https://www.postcodelottery.co.uk/good-causes/draw-calendar
• It costs £10 a month to play and winning postcodes are announced every day. The maximum amount a single ticket can win is 10% of the draw proceeds, subject to a maximum of £400,000. For details, please visit www.postcodelottery.co.uk/prizes
• New players can sign up to pay using direct debit by calling 0808 10 9 8 7 6 5. New players who sign up online at www.postcodelottery.co.uk can pay using direct debit, debit card or PayPal.
• Postcode Lottery Limited is regulated by the Gambling Commission under licence numbers: 000-000829-N-102511 and 000-000829-R-102513. Registered office: Titchfield House, 69/85 Tabernacle Street, London, EC2A 4RR
• Follow us @PostcodePress

Participating groups

• Coatbridge Community Centre, North Lanarkshire Council Social Services
• Drummond Community HS, City of Edinburgh Council
• Waid Academy, Anstruther, Fife Council
• Inverkeithing HS, Fife Council
• North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership, Intervention Services, Rosemount Project Kinship Group/North Ayrshire Alcohol and Drug Partnership
• NHS Lothian Public Health Awareness
• Works + (Galashiels)
• Spartans Football Club Alternative Academy, North Edinburgh
• Citadel Youth Project (Leith)
• NYAAG – National Youth Arts Advisory Group (Creative Scotland)
• TUK, Thinktank for Youth Culture, Denmark
• Canongate Youth Project
• Access to Industry
• Artists: Morgan Atkinson, Catherine O’ Brien
• Students: Emma Mitchell, Level 3, Contemporary Art Practice, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), and Sarah-Jane Henderson, Third Year, Glasgow School of Art

7 January 2019
Work starts in East Princes Street Gardens as transformation of the Scottish National Gallery continues

• New fly-through animation reveals the new gallery experience being created.
• Work gets underway to create new accessible path, new landscaping and wider steps in East Princes Street Gardens.
• Gardens entrance to the Scottish National Gallery to temporarily close until spring 2019.
• The Scottish Café & Restaurant and main Gallery shop to temporarily close until spring 2019.
• Galleries to officially join the Council’s community toilet scheme as an accessible toilet on the Mound precinct will be removed.

January 2019 will bring the next steps in the redevelopment of the Scottish National Gallery (SNG) in Edinburgh with work starting in East Princes Street Gardens and continuing inside the Galleries.

The vision for the project, which got underway in October 2018, has been revealed in a new fly through animation which has been released to coincide with this stage of work.

The £22m project, which will create a new home for the world’s greatest collection of Scottish art, began in October 2018. It will transform former office, storage and display spaces into a new set of galleries that, for the first time, will be entered directly from the adjacent East Princes Street Gardens. They will showcase the National Galleries of Scotland’s amazingly rich collection of historic Scottish art, which contains masterpieces by Henry Raeburn, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Scottish Colourists as well as giving direct access to the rest of the SNG’s international collection. The project is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Scottish Government.

As part of the work in this phase of the development, which is due to last until spring 2019, public access in and around East Princes Street Gardens and the Mound precinct will change. During this period the Gardens entrance to the SNG will be closed; visitors will instead use the entrances on The Mound.

From mid-January, work starts on the new landscaping which includes the widening of existing steps and the construction of a new accessible path in the Gardens, which will help those with mobility impairments, wheelchairs and prams. The Galleries’ plans, which were approved after a lengthy consultation with City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) and other bodies, address the long-standing inadequacy of accessible routes in this area; without this new path, the East Gardens would remain accessible only via steep gradients or stairs.

As part of the works an accessible toilet on the Mound precinct will be removed, and the NGS will join the CEC’s community toilet scheme. Our nearby accessible toilet facilities are open to the public without having to visit the Gallery itself.

During this phase of work we will also be planting 22 new trees in East Princes Street Gardens with species chosen to complement existing trees in the wider gardens. These trees will be between 4.5 metres and 6 metres in height. They will replace 52 trees removed in autumn 2018 to enable the reshaping of an embankment that is necessary for the new accessible path.

The new trees are depicted in the new animated fly through, and landscape architects and other professional organisations supporting the project have advised and verified on their depiction, including their size and species. NGS is also in discussion with the CEC and Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust about the planting of additional trees in other locations in the city.

The main Gallery shop and The Scottish Café & Restaurant will also temporarily close until spring 2019. Alternative facilities – including a souvenir shop inside the Gallery and the shop on Princes Street will be available as normal - as well as a new Espresso café opening at the SNG entrance on the Mound in early 2019.

Also due to start in this phase is the installation of a much larger lift and stairwell at the south end of the SNG, which will connect with the new gallery spaces and radically improve the way the whole building is accessed by visitors. While construction work continues on the stairwell, there will be some temporary disruption with no lift access to some rooms where we show 18th, 19th and early 20th Century Art, including Scottish Art, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

Speaking today, Sir John Leighton, Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “It has been very exciting over the autumn to see work on this transformational project get started, and as we move out of winter and into spring we’re looking forward to some of our first milestones becoming a reality. Landscaping will start shortly and by the spring our new accessible route into Princes Street Gardens will be complete and our restaurant and enlarged shop will reopen to welcome the public. Unavoidably there will be some disruption around the site over the coming weeks, and we are grateful for the public’s patience while we create these improvements to the galleries and the surrounding space. We want the Scottish National Gallery to be a place for everyone to enjoy. We have two years to go before opening, but we hope that as this year progresses people will already begin to feel the great benefits of the work we are doing here.”

Dr Tricia Allerston, Co-Director, Scottish National Gallery Project, added: “We draw around 2.5 million visitors each year to our Edinburgh-based galleries, and our ambitious plans for the Scottish National Gallery will ensure we continue to meet the needs and expectations of all. With this once-in-a-lifetime project, we will transform the way we show the world’s greatest collection of historic Scottish art, both in the new, light-filled, state-of-the-art display spaces and in the innovative way we will be showcasing the work of Scottish artists alongside our wider international collection.’

—ENDS—

Notes to Editors

The vision for the SNG project has been driven by the National Galleries’ ambition to ensure that the widest number of people can enjoy our art and activities. The displays in the new galleries will be directly informed by extensive research into the needs of existing and potential audiences.

For the first time in a generation, there will be new displays drawn from the Scottish and international collection. This fresh approach will allow us to say much more about Scotland’s art and to highlight the international significance of pioneering figures such as Allan Ramsay, Gavin Hamilton, Sir David Wilkie and Phoebe Anna Traquair.

The scope of the new displays, which will be revealed when the new galleries open in early 2021, will also be broader, encompassing the work of early 20th-century artists such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Stanley Cursiter, Jessie M. King, Phyllis Mary Bone and the Scottish Colourists S J Peploe and F C B Cadell.

The project will create a beautiful new space in the heart of Edinburgh, which will be free for everyone to use and enjoy. A series of large windows, running the length of the new gardens-level façade, will fill the galleries with light and colour, and offer spectacular views over one of the most celebrated cityscapes in the world. Extensive new landscaping in the gardens will radically improve access to this much-loved part of the city, and the project will also create a larger shop, brand-new café and more accessible restaurant.

Specific activities on completion of the project include a dedicated family day one day a week, more volunteers in the galleries to connect visitors with our new offer and new audience-focused interpretation.

The SNG redevelopment has been designed by one of Scotland’s leading architectural practices, Hoskins Architects, which has been widely praised for a number of high-profile designs in the arts and cultural sector.

During construction work we intend to keep disruption in the surrounding area and in the Gallery itself to a minimum, though there will be some room closures. To enable excavation works to the galleries directly beneath, the Playfair Steps, at the rear of the SNG, will be closed for the duration of the building work.

New fly-through animation of the Scottish National Gallery Project is available to view here.

Read more on the Scottish National Gallery Project changes on our website here.

Funding figures from Scottish Government and Heritage Lottery Fund:
Scottish Government: £5.5 million.
Heritage Lottery Fund: £4.94 million.