Press releases 2008
DUTCH MANNERISM: GOLTZIUS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
22 November 2008 – 8 February 2009
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Telephone 0131 6246 6200; recorded information 0131 332 2266
www.nationalgalleries.org
Admission free
The National Gallery of Scotland invites you to view some treasures from its collection and celebrate the ‘Dawn of the Golden Age’ of Dutch Art this autumn. Dutch Mannerism focuses on two major acquisitions made by the National Gallery of Scotland in recent years: Hendrick Goltzius’ extraordinary drawing of a Bust of a Man with a Tasselled Cap and Abraham Bloemaert’s splendid painting, Miracle of the Loaves. These masterpieces will be shown beside approximately 30 prints and drawing from the permanent collection including examples of by Goltzius’ contemporaries, Jacob Matham, Jan Saenredam, and Jacques de Gheyn.
The word ‘Mannerism’ derives from the Italian maniera and this style of art is usually associated with Italian painting, sculpture and architecture of the period between the High Renaissance and the Baroque. Dutch Mannerism, however, was the predominant style in the art of the Northern Netherlands from about the 1580s until the 1610s and developed from the NethverlandishNeverlandish tradition blended with Italian and German art. Paintings, drawings and prints of Dutch Mannerism are among the most sophisticated and celebrated works of Dutch Art and form the brilliant ‘Dawn of the Golden Age’.
The most important artist of Dutch Mannerism is Hendrick Goltzius. In 1587 he produced one of his most memorable drawings, the Bust of a Man with a Tasselled Cap. This large pen drawing is undoubtedly the most extraordinary addition of recent decades to Goltzius’s oeuvre. An unknown work until acquired in 2000 by the National Galleries of Scotland from the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton House (Kettering, Northamptonshire), it probably came from an album bought by one of the Dukes of Montagu in the eighteenth century. The sheet is dominated by the fleshy head of a man with huge double chins, wearing a high cap with flaps and a tassel and shows Goltzius’s technical virtuosity and his power of imagination.
Goltzius along with fellow artists Van Mander and Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1562-1638) founded the ‘Haarlem Academy’. While we do not know how long it existed or how it worked the impact of the three artists on Dutch art cannot be overestimated. While Haarlem clearly was the centre of Dutch Mannerism, there was also a distinct Utrecht Mannerism style represented by Abraham Bloemaert and Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638). Bloemaert’s painting, The Miracle of the Loaves - where Christ is shown with the five loaves and two fishes which will feed the five thousand – is typical of mannerist painting as the main scene takes place in the middle distance, and is framed and partly obscured by monumental figures in the foreground. Bloemaert painted this work shortly after staying in Amsterdam in 1591-2 which had given him the opportunity to meet artists from Haarlem. It is the earliest surviving depiction he made of this rarely depicted subject.
Bloemaert was also a prolific draughtsman. Other treats on show include Venus Appeals to Cupid to Make Pluto Fall in Love with Proserpina which dates from the same period as the painting in the National Gallery of Scotland and Chariclea Crowning Theagenes which is a preparatory drawing for a painting of 1626. Both works show Bloemaert’s interest in unusual subjects from Antiquity and how he continued to use often returned to mannerist forms and compositions throughout his long career in many of his late drawings.
£10 MILLION LIFELINE GRANTED FROM NATIONAL HERITAGE MEMORIAL FUND TO HELP SAVE TITIAN MASTERPIECE FOR THE NATION
Today, the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), the UK’s fund of last resort for saving great heritage at risk, announced its decision to award £10million to The National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery to help acquire Titian’s pre-eminent masterpiece, Diana and Actaeon.
The NHMF’s contribution is the most significant so far to the campaign, bringing a welcome boost as the December deadline approaches.
The painting - which is currently on special loan to the National Gallery - has been offered to both Galleries on extremely favourable terms by the current owner, the 7th Duke of Sutherland.
Jenny Abramsky, Chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, said: “This is exactly what the National Heritage Memorial Fund was set up to do. We have moved quickly to show our support and hope this persuades others to dig deep to make this dream a reality. It was an extraordinary and challenging decision for us financially, but it’s as important as ever to protect our enduring cultural heritage – those things of outstanding quality that enrich our national life.
“The NHMF is privileged to be able to take a really long-term view, and if our contribution helps the campaign to succeed, generations to come will be able to enjoy this truly extraordinary work of art.”
“As well as recognising the outstanding quality and importance of ‘Diana and Actaeon’, NHMF was particularly keen to help the Galleries secure the continued loan of the rest of the Bridgewater Collection – the greatest private collection of old masters on loan to a public gallery in the world. Staggered payments will enable the Fund to spread the costs and remain open to help save other heritage treasures.”
John Leighton, Director-General, National Galleries of Scotland said: “This extremely generous and wholehearted support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund represents a major boost for the campaign to acquire this superlative masterpiece for the national collections. In supporting this acquisition the Fund has also recognised fully the vital importance of keeping the Bridgewater Collection on view in Scotland and available for the inspiration and enjoyment of the present and future generations.”
Nicholas Penny, Director, National Gallery London said: “We are enormously grateful to the National Heritage Memorial Fund for this hugely generous offer. It represents a crucial endorsement of the value of acquiring the Titian and will inspire others to support the campaign. It brings us significantly closer to our target.”
The Galleries have until the end of this year to raise the £50m to acquire Diana and Actaeon. If this is successful, they have also been offered assurances which we hope will secure the loan of the rest of the Bridgewater collection for the next 21 years, and the galleries will be offered an option (which may be exercised up until 2012) to buy a second painting, Diana and Callisto for a similar amount. Both paintings will then go on a rotating display between London and Edinburgh, spending five years at a time in each location.
A grant of £1million was awarded by The Art Fund last month.
Due to popular demand, Diana and Actaeon’s visit to London will now be extended until Sunday 14 December 2008.
DEMARCO ARCHIVE GOES ONLINE
An ambitious project to open up a unique record of cultural life in Scotland over the last 50 years will reach completion this month, with the launch of the Demarco Digital Archive website on 1st November 2008. The website - www.demarco-archive.ac.uk - will be the culmination of three years’ work to establish a digital database of photographs and documents from the archive of Richard Demarco, the celebrated Edinburgh-born artist, gallery director and promoter of the arts. Funded by a grant of £312,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project to create online access to around 10,000 items is a collaboration between the School of Fine Art, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, the Demarco European Art Foundation and the National Galleries of Scotland. This fascinating material, most of which has not been seen before, will provide a remarkable insight into the history of the visual and performing arts in Scotland from the early 1950s to the present day.
Comprising hundreds of thousands items amassed by Richard Demarco, the archive documents his long career as an artist, collector, exhibition organiser, theatre promoter, educator, and influential advocate for both Scottish and international contemporary art. Born in 1930, Demarco was a co-founder and artistic director of Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, which opened in 1963. He went on to establish the Richard Demarco Gallery, and between 1966 and 1998 mounted a radical and innovative programme of exhibitions and events, bringing European artists such as Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovic, Tadeusz Kantor and Blinky Palermo to the UK for the first time.
Strongly internationalist in outlook, Demarco has played a pivotal role in promoting cross-cultural links, organising a series of innovative summer schools and educational journeys, and forging especially strong links with artists, writers, performers and theatre companies from Eastern Europe (in particular Poland, Romania, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary and the Baltic states). He has also used his extensive network of international collaborators to establish connections and create outlets for Scottish artists across Europe and beyond.
In recognition of its unique significance, much of Demarco’s document archive covering the period from 1963 to 1995 was acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1995. The photographic archive is maintained by The Demarco European Art Foundation, established in 1992, which has continued to add a huge range of material of international significance. The creation of the digital archive and website, selected and managed by Duncan of Jordanstone, is seen as a way of opening up the riches of these archives to a wider public.
The larger part of the digital archive comprises photographic images, reflecting Demarco’s use of the camera as a documentary and a social tool. His great skill has been to bring together leading artists, thinkers and practitioners from many disciplines and to give them a platform on which they can interact. Having organised and participated in exhibitions, performances, conferences, exchanges, meetings and events of all kinds, he has used his camera to record them all. For the website, photographs have been chosen to reflect the full range of Demarco’s activities and to represent the most historically important aspects of his career (such as the landmark performances of Joseph Beuys and Henning Christiansen’s Scottish Symphony: Celtic Kinloch Rannoch in 1970, and Marina Abramovic’s Rhythm 0 in 1973). Fully searchable and cross-referenced, the website will create an indispensable resource for public use and professional research, and will serve as an introduction and complement to the physical archives. This is a continuing project and information will continue to be added into the future.
Euan McArthur, Project Director at Duncan of Jordanstone said, ‘Richard Demarco’s work is of great historical importance for Scottish and international contemporary art. There are so few public archives in this field that it is all the more important that we digitise these images to make them publicly available. Making the images available in digital format will give the public and many researchers in contemporary art history access to this unique historical record. Dundee is well placed to do this work with our knowledge of the archive and digital facilities. We are delighted to work with such an important archive.’
Richard Demarco, who was closely involved in the selection of material for the digital archive, said, ‘Enduring art originates in the meetings of friends and their shared values and aspirations. I have always believed that the archive was an artwork, and my life’s work. This is the justification of that belief.’
Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Galleries of Scotland said ‘The Gallery of Modern Art is delighted to be involved in this project. The Demarco Archives hold a wealth of information about the contemporary art scene in Europe from the 1960s to the present day. At a time when Scottish artists feature so strongly on the international stage, it is important that the pioneering work of Demarco should be recognized and made available to the widest possible audience.’
THE ISLANDERS: AN INTRODUCTION
CHARLES AVERY
29 November 2008 – 15 February 2009
SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, 75 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR
Telephone 0131 6246 6200; recorded information 0131 332 2266
www.nationalgalleries.org
Admission free
Sponsored by the Friends and by the Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland
The Islanders: An Introduction has been organised by Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London.
An exhibition by one of the most creative and thought-provoking Scottish artists of the last decade invites you on an expedition to an imaginary island. The Islanders: An Introduction is the latest instalment in an epic four year project to describe life on an island created by the artist Charles Avery. Using texts, drawings, installations and sculpture Avery has detailed the landscape, customs, and culture of his island, creating a challenging space for philosophical inquiry.
The Islanders: An Introduction will bring together the project so far, including several new works which will be shown in Scotland for the first time. Among these will be a large-scale sculptural installation, which was purchased by the National Galleries of Scotland in 2007. This sculpture depicts one of the most striking features of Avery’s invented world - a motley group of deities, who live on a wasteland called The Plane of the Gods. This is the Island’s most popular tourist attraction and is home to the erect and threatening August Snakes. Visitors to the exhibition will also discover mysterious landscapes such as the Eternal Forest, where the mythical beast the Noumenon is rumoured to live. Other exhibits include a large taxidermy sculpture of a fearsome Ridable, a magnificent specimen of the islands wildlife and the bitterly disgusting, but ruinously addictive gin-soaked pickled eggs which are sold in the island’s marketplace.
Inspired by his upbringing on the island of Mull - and by time spent in Rome, and Hackney Avery’s work has its roots in figures as diverse as William Blake, Joseph Beuys, Joseph Kosuth, Jorge Luis Borges, Ludwig Wittgenstein and P.G. Wodehouse. Once complete, Avery plans for his Island project to be encapsulated in several large, leather-bound encyclopaedic volumes.
Charles Avery was born in Oban in 1973 and is based in London. In 2007, he was selected with five other artists to represent Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale, as part of the Scotland and Venice exhibition. In 2003 he was one of four finalists in the Award for Italian Art, shown in that year’s Venice Biennale. He has recently been selected for the forthcoming TATE Triennial in 2009. Following its exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, The Islanders: An Introduction will tour to Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
The Islanders: An Introduction is organised in collaboration with Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art. A book published by Parasol unit will accompany the exhibition, with contributions by Nicolas Bourriaud, Tom Morton and Ziba de Weck Ardalan.
Parallel Lives 2:
See the Future
5th November 2008 to the 18th January 2009
NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND (see notes to editors for more details)
Telephone 0131 6246 6200; recorded information 0131 332 2266
www.nationalgalleries.org
On Wednesday the 5th November 2008, an exhibition of the major community art initiative, Parallel Lives 2 opens across three National Galleries of Scotland venues. This project, launched by Robin Harper MSP in February, aimed to find ways of making works in the National Galleries’ collection more directly relevant to communities living in contemporary Edinburgh.
Three visionary works of art were chosen as the inspiration for the project -
· Marcel Broodthaers’ surreal sculpture ‘ La Tour Visuelle’, 1966
· George Seurat’s post-impressionist landscape ‘La Luzerne, St. Denis’, 1885
· James Edgar’s portrait of preacher and philanthropist ‘Rev. Thomas Guthrie’, 1862
Parallel Lives 2 offered people the opportunity to investigate these challenging works of art and use them to express their views on contemporary life. Community groups from Leith, North and West Edinburgh worked with contemporary artists to produce creative responses that give shape and form to their views on social issues. These responses can now be seen next to the original works they were inspired by in this dramatic and innovative exhibition.
A Field of Wheat before Wester Hailes (2008)
At the National Gallery Complex visitors will be able to see a video projection of the living landscape of West Edinburgh next to post-impressionist masterpieces by Seurat, Monet and Cezanne. Participants in West Edinburgh saw the changes in their local landscape paralleled in Georges Seurat’s transformative vision of the urban fringe of Paris. Led by photographer Craig MacLean, participants gathered thousands of images submitted by local residents to form a mosaic landscape representing the life of this community.
Tower of Leith (2008)
An imposing and dramatic tower of 100 MP4 players showing simultaneous videos recorded on the mobile phones of people from Leith can be seen at the Dean Gallery. This amazing Dalek-like structure is both alien and mysteriously alive. It updates Marcel Broodthaers’ ‘tower’ which provokes debate about surveillance and the positive and negative uses of digital imaging technology. The community’s response, facilitated by video artist Gavin Lockhart, takes the form of a contemporary ‘Tower of Babel’.
Does Reform Reform You? (2008)
At the Portrait Gallery, people from North Edinburgh frankly air their views about child poverty, in a video made reacting to a portrait of a 19th century missionary alongside badges and jerseys bearing activist slogans. The portrait of the nineteenth century reformer Dr. Guthrie, founder of the notorious ‘Ragged Schools’, raised the question of contemporary attitudes to poverty, charity and social policy among older people in North Edinburgh. Working with the artist Kevin Reid, their response includes oral testimonies and slogans coined in response to Guthrie’s missionary activity.
As a result of the project, communities and individuals have learned new skills and have relished the offer to represent themselves on the national stage by interpreting and creating works of art as a focus for local issues. We hope to have proved once again that the art in Scotland’s national collection can be a lasting inspiration to all the people of Scotland.
'Parallel Lives', Documentary Film (2008)
A 15 minute documentary film of the project, made by director Lou MacLoughlan of Beanland Films, is part of the exhibition reviewing the project. This ground-breaking film is a fascinating record of the people on the project getting to grips with the NGS artworks. They are seen freely expressing their opinions as part of a lively and thought-provoking appraisal of an outreach project.
Parallel Lives 2 is a partnership project with Edinburgh’s Capital City Partnership, Edinburgh Neighbourhood Partnerships, WHALE, Out of the Blue Arts Trust and North Edinburgh Arts.
Following its exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland, Parallel Lives 2 will be shown in community venues in 2009.
Tracey Emin, whose retrospective exhibition Tracey Emin: 20 Years closes at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art on Sunday 9th November, has generously donated a major sculpture to the Gallery. Roman Standard (2005) comprises a bronze pole 13-foot tall, surmounted by a little bird, cast in bronze. Part of the exhibition, it has been erected in the grounds of the Gallery, close to the entrance. The work can be seen as a kind of self-portrait: the bird is small and vulnerable, but at the same time it is visible from a distance and commands attention.
Tracey Emin commented: ‘On the final days of installing my show, 20 Years at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, I had very strong, mixed emotional feelings. Complete happiness and enjoyment of not just installing my show but being really happy in Edinburgh and enjoying every moment of the fantastic hospitality that was shown to me. I also had feelings of sadness, of counting the seconds and hours knowing that I would soon be leaving. Patrick Elliott, the curator had seemed ecstatically happy about the positioning of my sculpture, Roman Standard. He said it looked like it had always been there and that’s the seed that was sown. I thought to myself that whilst it hadn’t always been there, why shouldn’t it stay there? The gift of Roman Standard is a gift to the Scottish National Galleries and to Edinburgh to say thank you.’
Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art said: ‘We are thrilled to have such a major work in the collection. We already own a number of monoprint drawings by Tracey, but we have nothing of this importance or scale. It was wonderful having Tracey here for the installation of the exhibition, and she returned on a number of occasions to give public talks, which were both popular and enlightening. This is not only a great work and a significant addition to the collection, but it also acts as a reminder of her time here’.
The National Gallery of Scotland is delighted to announce the acquisition of The Penny Wedding by Alexander Carse. The acquisition has been made in keeping with the National Galleries of Scotland’s declared policy of strengthening the national collection of Scottish art. The painting has been on loan to the National Gallery since 1972 and this purchase ensures that the Gallery now possesses one of the two most important works by Carse in public museum ownership, matched only by The Village Ba’ Game (1818) in the McManus Galleries in Dundee. It was purchased at Bonham’s Scottish Sale on 29 August through the agency of Bourne Fine Art for £151,725 (£120,000 hammer price).
A younger contemporary of David Wilkie, Carse (about 1790-1843) is still a relatively undocumented artist whose vital contribution to the portrayal of old Scottish pastimes and the development of Scottish genre painting continues to be underrated. Although distinctively Scottish, Carse’s Penny Wedding is clearly indebted to sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings of peasant weddings which he possibly knew from reproductive engravings. Like these Old Master predecessors, Carse filled his composition with all sorts of humorous narratives. On the right of the picture two farmers or shepherds are gorging themselves on ham, while a third pulls down his bonnet to say grace. Behind them a pair of men are bickering over their voluntary contributions as the hat is passed round.
The Penny Wedding is one of Carse’s most ambitious and elaborate exercises in social genre. It was launched to the public at the British Institution in 1819 while the artist was living in London. That same year Wilkie showed his own composition on an identical theme at the Royal Academy, a picture commissioned by George IV when Prince Regent and now in the Royal Collection. In spite of its relative naivete by comparison with Wilkie, Carse’s iconic Penny Wedding provides a crucial link between David Allan’s late eighteenth-century illustrations of Scottish manners – the Gallery has an Allan watercolour (1795) on the same theme –and the internationally celebrated genre paintings of Wilkie. Carse evidently revelled in the raucous merriment and boisterous vitality associated with this distinctively Scottish custom whereby guests defrayed the costs of the wedding feast and any surplus was used to set up the couple in their new home.
Michael Clarke, Director of the National Gallery, said “The NGS faces many competing calls on its acquisition funds and of course at the moment we face the huge challenge of raising funds for the Bridgewater Titians. However, it is essential that we maintain our commitment to our national school of painting. We recently acquired major works by the Glasgow Boys from the McIntosh Patrick collection. Now we have bought this fascinating celebration of Scottish social customs from the earlier part of the nineteenth century. We shall continue to search out the best in historic Scottish art as and when it becomes available.”
THE INTIMATE PORTRAIT:
DRAWINGS, MINIATURES AND PASTELS
FROM RAMSAY TO LAWRENCE
25 October 2008 – 1 February 2009
SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen St, Edinburgh, EH2 1JD
Telephone 0131 6246 6200; recorded information 0131 332 2266
www.nationalgalleries.org
Admission free
Exhibition organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and the British Museum
Exhibition sponsored by Artemis Investment Management Ltd
The first ever major UK exhibition to examine a fascinating but relatively unknown aspect of British portraiture will open at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery this autumn. The Intimate Portrait will explore the period between the 1730s and the 1830s – the heyday of British portraiture – when some of the country’s greatest artists produced beautifully worked portraits in pencil, chalks, watercolours and pastels, as well as miniatures on ivory, that were often exhibited, sold and displayed as finished works of art. Jointly organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and the British Museum, this exhibition of nearly 200 works will draw upon the superb (and largely unexplored) holdings of intimate portrait drawings in the collections of both institutions, as well as upon important private collections that have been placed on long-term loan at the Portrait Gallery. Highlights will include masterpieces by Allan Ramsay, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence and David Wilkie.
While oil paintings and sculpture dominated the very public art of portraiture which flourished in Georgian and Regency Britain, many artists were simultaneously involved in creating more private portraits for domestic consumption and display. Portrait miniatures painted in watercolour on ivory were worn as jewellery or displayed as treasures in cabinets; pastels with their fragile but brilliant surfaces were protected under glass and hung within gilt frames; while drawings were either framed and hung in family groups or kept in albums or portfolios to be shown to friends and family.
Until now, there has never been a serious investigation of these captivating modes of portraiture, and it has largely been forgotten that these smaller, more intimate portraits were also enjoyed by a wider public, and were exhibited in their hundreds at the Royal Academy in London and other public exhibition spaces in Britain, such as the Associated Society of Artists in Edinburgh. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s magnificent portrait drawing of Mary Hamilton, which will feature in the exhibition, was one of thirteen works that he showed at the RA in 1789, most of them in pastels and chalk. A contemporary press report stated: ‘The drawings in the Exhibition are this year and have been for several years past, superior in merit to the paintings.’
The Intimate Portrait will bring together works by around fifty artists, including many of the leading figures of the period, such as Richard Cosway, John Brown, Archibald Skirving, Francis Cotes, George Dance, Henry Fuseli and John Downman. Of particular note will be two masterly self-portrait drawings by the young rivals Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. The majority of the beautiful portraits in the exhibition will be largely unknown to the public, as their sensitivity to light means they can only be shown infrequently.
The exhibition will include sections devoted to pastels, drawings and miniatures, and in addition, will examine the themes of self-portraiture, the depiction of artists’ families and friends, and the portrayal of the political, social, literary and theatrical celebrities of the day. Among the well-known sitters in the show will be Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Robert Burns, Lady Hamilton, the Duke of Wellington and the young Queen Victoria.
From the origins of polite society and the fashionable art world until the beginning of the Victorian era and the invention of photography – the period covered by this exhibition – portraits far exceeded in number any other genre exhibited and played a dominant role in visual culture and society. This exhibition will explore the significance of intimate portraits as indicators of contemporary taste, sentiment and social and material culture in this period, by examining how and why they were made, commissioned, and displayed. It will also examine these works’ crucial differences from oils, and above all, their qualities as portraits that are ‘intimate’ in the multiple senses of the words.
Speaking of the exhibition, Nick Wells, Head of communications at Artemis Investment Management Ltd, said, “As an Edinburgh-based company, Artemis is delighted to sponsor The Intimate Portrait at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The remarkable works on show will offer a fascinating insight into a type of portraiture that is hardly known and rarely seen today. It is truly rewarding to facilitate their display and help to bring them to a much wider audience.”
Following its showing at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, The Intimate Portrait will be displayed in the Prints & Drawings gallery (Room 90) at the British Museum from 5 March to 31 May 2009.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, priced £25; written by co-curators Dr Stephen Lloyd, Senior Curator at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and by Dr Kim Sloan, Curator of British Drawings and Watercolours before 1880 at the British Museum.
GERHARD RICHTER:
PAINTINGS FROM PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
8 November 2008 – 4 January 2009
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
0131 624 6200
Admission £6 / £4; children free (12 years and under)
One of the greatest and most influential European artists of the last fifty years will be the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery Complex in Edinburgh this autumn. Gerhard Richter: Paintings from Private Collections will be the second installment in the Bank of Scotland totalART series, the largest ever sponsorship of modern art in Scotland. This will be the first time that such an exhibition has been seen in this country and the first large-scale survey of Richter’s work in the UK for nearly two decades.
Bank of Scotland has invested over £400,000 in Bank of Scotland totalART, which aims to ensure that modern art reaches the widest possible audience, creating educational and inspirational experiences for all. The series opened with the hugely successful Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life…and Death, which brought 95,000 visitors to the National Gallery Complex in 2007.
Born in Dresden in 1932, Gerhard Richter has done more than any other living artist to put painting back on the agenda for artists, critics and the public alike. Since the early 1960s his paintings, both figurative and abstract, with their superb mastery of technique, strong conceptual underpinning, subtle ambivalence and sheer beauty, have had a huge impact on generations of artists, and have helped to make painting once again a vital means of artistic expression. Arguably, he is the world’s greatest living painter.
Bank of Scotland totalART: Gerhard Richter will offer an unrivalled overview of the artist’s career, bringing together over 60 paintings dating from 1963 right up to the recent past. The exhibition will include works from virtually every period of Richter’s development, beginning with his iconic black-and-white, photo-based works (which earned him the label of German Pop artist), and ending with his magisterial, sensuously coloured abstracts of the 1990s and beyond.
Working in a period in which painting has been deemed by many to be anachronistic and irrelevant, Richter has seemed determined to explore the full palette of possibilities that the medium has to offer: from figurative to abstract, from monochrome to multi-coloured, from flat, uniform application of paint to webs of swirling brushstrokes, from precise control to the use of chance. In this exhibition, Richter’s mastery of paint can be explored in many of his finest and most famous works.
The exhibition, which has been co-organised with the Frieder Burda Museum in Baden-Baden, the Albertina in Vienna and the MKM Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst in Duisburg, has been made possible by the generosity of five private collections, which between them possess an extraordinary range of Richter’s paintings, and moreover of supreme quality. In addition, a group of major paintings from the ARTIST ROOMS Collection, recently acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate from the Anthony d’Offay Collection, will be displayed for the first time.
During the autumn and winter of 2008-09, the British public will be able to enjoy two other major presentations of Richter’s work: 4900 Colours: Version II, at the Serpentine Gallery, London (23 September – 16 November 2008); and Gerhard Richter Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London (26 February – 31 May 2009).
Sarah Cran, Head of Sponsorship, HBOS plc said: “We are really looking forward to the Richter exhibition, the second exhibition in the Bank of Scotland totalART series. It promises to be a fantastic show. Richter is one of the greatest living contemporary artists and a true inspiration to many aspiring art students. Our innovative education programme which will accompany the exhibition will engage and educate these students. There will also be a number of unique and exciting projects specifically geared towards young children and adults, ensuring that people of all ages and backgrounds have the opportunity to experience Richter’s work first hand.”
John Leighton, Director-General, National Galleries of Scotland said: “Gerhard Richter is arguably the most important and influential contemporary artist alive today so I am delighted that this major show will be coming to Scotland as the second exhibition in the Bank of Scotland totalART series. I would like to thank Bank of Scotland for their continued support and I look forward to working with them to bring top-class modern and contemporary art to Scotland.”
NEW SCOTTISH ACQUISITIONS: ART AND INDUSTRY
In collaboration with the Scottish Government, the National Gallery of Scotland is delighted to announce one of the most fascinating Scottish acquisitions of recent years. Accepted by H M Government in Lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Gallery in 2008, David Allan’s four small oil paintings illustrating the stages of lead processing at Leadhills in Lanarkshire are a unique record of an industrial process in late eighteenth-century Scotland.
As a result, the National Galleries of Scotland now possess the most comprehensive and definitive collection of the work of David Allan of Alloa (1744-1796). Following his ten-year sojourn in Italy from 1767, Allan returned to Britain in 1777 in the hope of establishing himself as a portrait painter in London. But in 1780, defeated by unequal competition from Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney and Zoffany, he retreated to Edinburgh to renew the influential patronage he had first enjoyed in the 1760s. Amongst the first to resume their patronage were the Hopes of Hopetoun.
The magnificent mansion of Hopetoun House near South Queensferry, had been financed from the proceeds of the mines at Leadhills in the Lowther Hills of Lanarkshire where the Hopes had secured the mining rights in 1638. This beautiful but bleak locality, which probably witnessed primitive lead smelting as early as the ninth and tenth centuries, was famed as ‘God’s Treasure House in Scotland’ for its outstanding diversity of minerals, gold, and silver, the most highly prized and lucrative by-product of lead. The 3rd Earl of Hopetoun, who took a close interest in the operations of the mines and their management by the Scotch Mining Company as his lessee, undertook a personal tour of inspection in 1786. This may well have been the occasion of his remarkable commission to David Allan.
In the first of the set of four paintings, the Leadhills washer boys, who were often as young as nine, are shown pounding the crude ore under the watchful eye of the Earl and his Countess. The second painting depicts the sieving and washing of the broken ore – a hazardous occupation as the waste water was often contaminated and compounded the pollution from toxic fumes emanating from the smelters shown in the third painting. The last painting in the sequence shows the final weighing ceremony for the finished lead bars or ingots, averaging nine stone in weight. The Earl’s quota of every sixth bar having been extracted, the remaining ingots would be loaded on to horse-drawn carts for the long and costly overland journey to Leith and onward distribution or export by the Scotch Mining Company to the markets of Northern Europe and Russia.
Allan’s paintings were probably commissioned for Moffat House in the High Street of the fashionable health resort of Moffat. Now a hotel, the most elegant townhouse in Moffat had been built for the Hopes in the 1760s as the administrative headquarters for their estates in lowland west of Scotland, providing equally convenient access to Leadhills and the spa waters of the town itself. Stylised and sanitised for the benefit of his patrons and a genteel audience, Allan’s paintings focus on the actual industrial procedure as a vital source of private and national income and emphasise the productivity of the Scotch Mining Company as the lessees of Lord Hopetoun’s mines and the employers of some two hundred men. convey little idea of the real hardships of life in this isolated mining community where life expectancy for miners and their livestock was short and many fell victim to the dreaded lead ‘brash’ poisoning, dying in convulsions.
Michael Clarke, Director of the National Gallery said: ‘Allan’s paintings are of enormous interest – especially for all those engaged in the investigation and interpretation of Scotland’s social, industrial and economic history. They complement perfectly the world-class collections of Leadhills minerals in National Museums Scotland. We are deeply grateful for this Acceptance-in-Lieu allocation, which adds something new to the Scottish national collection and we are greatly indebted to the private owners in question.’
NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND AND NATIONAL GALLERY LONDON JOIN FORCES TO SECURE THE FUTURE OF OLD MASTER COLLECTION FOR THE UK
Joint Statement on behalf of National Galleries of Scotland, the National Gallery London and the Duke of Sutherland:
The National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) and the National Gallery in London (NGL) are working together with the Duke of Sutherland to secure the long-term future of the Bridgewater loan of Old Master paintings.
The Bridgewater Collection, currently on view at the NGS, is the most important private collection of Old Master paintings on loan to an institution in the UK and counts among the most important art collections anywhere in the world. The loan includes masterpieces by artists such as Raphael (3), Titian (4), Rembrandt (1) and Poussin (8). The pictures have been on continuous public view in the National Gallery of Scotland since the collection was placed there in 1945 by the then 5th Earl of Ellesmere, later 6th Duke of Sutherland. It forms the core of the National Gallery of Scotland’s world-famous displays of European art.
Over the years, the Bridgewater Collection has grown in value to the point where the Duke of Sutherland has decided that it would be prudent to review the holding in relation to the family’s overall assets, and he has therefore decided to offer a small number of selected pictures for sale to the nation, reflecting his strong preference that the entire collection should remain on public view in the UK. The Duke has offered the opportunity for the Galleries to acquire two masterpieces on extremely generous terms; Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, both by Titian.
Titian’s Diana & Actaeon is on offer at a net price of £50m. The NGS and NGL will be seeking funds to acquire this work which would then be available for display on a rotating basis in London and Edinburgh. Assuming the funds can be raised to enable this purchase to proceed, the two Galleries will also be granted an option to acquire the second picture, Diana & Callisto in four year’s time for a similar amount. If the effort to acquire these works is successful then the remainder of the Bridgewater Collection will remain on long-term loan at the NGS.
The two Titians are arguably the finest works in the Bridgewater Collection. They were both painted as part of a cycle of works for Philip II of Spain and they represent a highpoint in Italian Renaissance art.
This is the first-ever collaboration of its kind between the London and Edinburgh National Galleries.
The Bridgewater Loan originally numbered 32. The National Gallery of Scotland acquired four paintings from the Loan in 1984 and Titian’s Venus Anadyomene in 2003.
John Leighton, Director General, National Galleries of Scotland:
“The Bridgewater Loan, so generously made by the Duke of Sutherland, is the most important Old Master paintings loan to any public museum in the world and is of supreme importance to Scotland and the rest of the UK. The present initiative is intended to secure the long-term future of the Loan for the public benefit. We are delighted to be working in close collaboration with the Duke and our colleagues in London in order to achieve this.”
Nicholas Penny, Director, National Gallery London:
“For a century, the agitation to preserve great works of art in British Collections from export has been animated by anxiety that Titian’s great paintings Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto might be sold. Now the paintings have been offered on remarkably advantageous terms; their acquisition by both institutions would be an historic event.”
27 August 2008
FOTO: MODERNITY IN CENTRAL EUROPE, 1918-1945 7 June – 31 August 2008 DEAN GALLERY, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission £6.00 (concessions £4.00) Launching the 2008 Summer Season at the National Galleries of Scotland, Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945 is a thought-provoking and beautiful exhibition that explores the breathtaking success of modernist photography in Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Austria, during a time of tremendous social and political upheaval. Organised by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, this will be the only European showing of Foto, and it will include many stunning works on display in Britain for the first time. The first survey to explore this fascinating period in the history of photography, Foto will be unprecedented in scope, comprising around 150 photographs, books, and illustrated magazines, and will feature the work of more than 100 photographers. Images by internationally recognised masters such as László Moholy-Nagy, Hannah Höch, André Kertész, and El Lissitzky will be shown alongside those of historically important contemporaries such as Karel Teige, Edith Tudor Hart, František Drtikol, Martin Munkacsi and Trude Fleischmann. Foto will demonstrate how photography caught the imagination of hundreds of progressive artists in central Europe, provided a creative outlet for thousands of dedicated amateurs, and became a symbol of modernity for millions through its use in magazines, newspapers, advertising, and books. The show will be divided into thematic sections, each bringing together work from across central Europe, to explore in depth eight key strands such as photomontage and war, gender identity, life and leisure in the modern metropolis, and the spread of Surrealism. Commenting on the Dean Gallery exhibition, Matthew Witkovsky, Curator of Foto and Associate Curator of Photographs at NGA, Washington, said: “Presenting Foto in Scotland, home to many great talents of early photography and especially the team of David O. Hill and Robert Adamson, has a special meaning. The first art historical studies of photography were written in central Europe during the time period of this exhibition, and the very first such study was on Hill and Adamson. Past and present, regional and international came together in central Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, as they do in Edinburgh today.” Simon Groom, Director of Modern & Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “Foto is one of the most important and intelligent photography exhibitions of recent years. The works are radical politically as well as aesthetically, and the exhibition contains many of the ideas and iconic images that were to establish photography's status as the avant-garde medium of the 20th century.” The first of four major summer exhibitions at the NGS, Foto will present a collection of stimulating and varied works of international significance, which will allow viewers to appreciate some of the most challenging, yet beautiful, experimental photography of the twentieth century.
FACES AND PLACES: CREATING AND RECORDING SCOTLAND’S BUILDINGS 24 April – 20 July 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen St, Edinburgh Admission free The richness of Scotland’s built heritage will be celebrated in a fascinating new exhibition which will open in Edinburgh this spring. A partnership between the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Faces and Places will highlight the work of the architects, engineers, industrialists, archaeologists and antiquarians who created Scotland’s buildings, and who recorded and studied those of Scotland’s past. A wide range of items will be on display, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, photographs, notebooks and instruments. The exhibition is part of the celebration of the centenary of RCAHMS in 2008. Notable figures featured in the exhibition include Robert Adam (1728-92), Robert Stevenson (1772-1850) and Alexander Curle (1866-1955). Born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Robert Adam was the son of architect William Adam; with his brother, James (1732-94), he transformed British architecture, creating a new style based on an inventive use of classical motifs. Although best known as a marine engineer, designing and constructing at least eighteen lighthouses, including the Bell Rock, Robert Stevenson also worked on bridge, road, railway and canal projects. He established the Stevenson engineering practice which continued, managed by his descendants, until 1952. Alexander Curle was the first secretary of RCAHMS on its founding in 1908. He was appointed as an archaeologist, ‘an outdoor man’, in order ‘to make an inventory of the ancient monuments of Scotland of earlier date than 1707.’ Using a bicycle as his mode of transport, he single-handedly surveyed the counties of Berwickshire, Sutherland and Caithness between 1908 and 1911. Imogen Gibbon, co-curator of the exhibition from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery said: “This project has provided an opportunity for two national collections to work together in displaying a variety of artefacts which reveal the history of Scotland’s built heritage. Uniting faces and places, the exhibition highlights a number of less well-known figures in addition to those more prominent in their field.” Veronica Fraser from RCAHMS added: “Faces and Places is a major component of the RCAHMS centenary programme and we are delighted to be working with the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in bringing these individuals and their works to a wider audience.” The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland was set up in 1908, charged ‘to make an inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments…illustrative of the contemporary culture, civilization and conditions of life of the people in Scotland from the earliest times to the year 1707…’. In the century since then, RCAHMS’s responsibilities have expanded greatly, and the Commission now records and collects information relating to buildings and human landscapes of all periods. Complementing the remit of RCAHMS to record and collect information, the Reference Section of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery houses a portrait archive of around 30,000 photographs of portraits in collections worldwide. This collection, with its particular emphasis on Scottish sitters and artists, is a unique and invaluable resource for those studying Scottish history, Scottish portraiture and the iconography of individual Scots. This resource has enabled portraits of many of the individuals featured in this exhibition to be sourced and has demonstrated how the research resources of two institutions can work in tandem to celebrate the centenary of RCAHMS with the exhibition Faces and Places – Creating and Recording Scotland’s Buildings.
NEW £125 MILLION NATIONAL COLLECTION WILL BRING CONTEMPORARY ART TO AUDIENCES ACROSS BRITAIN A new modern art collection, to be known as ARTIST ROOMS, has been established, it was announced today, created through one of the largest and most imaginative gifts of art ever made to museums in Britain. The gift has been made by Anthony d’Offay, with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), The Art Fund and the Scottish and British Governments. ARTIST ROOMS will be jointly owned and managed by National Galleries of Scotland and Tate on behalf of the nation. The collection of 725 works, representing one of the most important holdings of post-war and international contemporary art in private hands, was assembled by Anthony d’Offay, whose London galleries played a key role in the promotion and understanding of twentieth-century art in the UK over a period of more than 30 years. Anthony d’Offay assembled the collection through his gallery over 28 years. The transfer of ownership is being made under a part gift/part sale at cost agreement. The cost of the collection to Anthony d’Offay was some £26.5 million, and he asked for and will receive £26.5 million, i.e. the original costs of these works. The collection has been valued today at £125 million. Anthony d’Offay’s guiding principle for the creation of ARTIST ROOMS is the concept of individual rooms devoted to particular artists. Many of these rooms were conceived as specific installations by the artists themselves. They have been assembled so that the work of important post-war artists can be seen and appreciated in depth. The primary aim is to create a new national resource of contemporary art that will strengthen displays and create exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the UK so as to inspire new audiences, especially of young people. It is hoped that the donation by Anthony d’Offay will establish a precedent for philanthropy to be followed by other collectors. ARTIST ROOMS takes the form of 50 rooms of contemporary art by 25 artists: Diane Arbus (3 rooms), Joseph Beuys (5), Vija Celmins (1), Ian Hamilton Finlay (1), Gilbert & George (2), Johann Grimonprez (1), Damien Hirst (1), Jenny Holzer (1), Alex Katz (1), Anselm Kiefer (3), Jeff Koons (2), Jannis Kounellis (4), Sol LeWitt (1), Richard Long (2), Robert Mapplethorpe (3), Agnes Martin (1), Ron Mueck (1), Bruce Nauman (2), Gerhard Richter (3), Ed Ruscha (1), Robert Therrien (2), Bill Viola (1), Andy Warhol (6), Lawrence Weiner (1), and Francesca Woodman (1). In addition, there are ten works by a further seven artists: Georg Baselitz, Ellen Gallagher, Richard Hamilton, Mario Merz, Charles Ray, Robert Ryman and Cy Twombly. A series of opening displays will be launched in Spring/Summer 2009 and staged at Tate galleries and the National Galleries of Scotland and a wide range of partner museums and galleries across the UK. The initial partners include Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums; De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill; Firstsite, Colchester; Glasgow Museums; Inverness Museum and Art Gallery; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; New Art Gallery, Walsall; MIMA, Middlesbrough; The Pier Arts Centre, Orkney; Ulster Museum, National Museums Northern Ireland and Wolverhampton Art Gallery. Additional galleries will be sought with which we hope to collaborate in 2009 and beyond. ARTIST ROOMS will transform the nation’s collections of contemporary art as a whole. It will materially strengthen Tate’s ability to represent some of the most important art of the latter half of the twentieth century, and establish Edinburgh as a world-class destination for modern art. It will significantly enhance the way in which both institutions are able to represent post-war and contemporary art in their permanent displays. The costs, which include the purchase of the artworks and set up and accessioning are £28 million. These costs have been met by £10 million each from both the Scottish and British Governments, £7 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and £1 million from The Art Fund. All taxes have been paid in full. The agreement also includes a provision for the establishment of a £5 million endowment fund by the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate, the interest from which will be used for the acquisition of further rooms by important contemporary artists and emerging young artists, ensuring that the collection can continue to grow in the future. An initial contribution of £500,000 each from the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate has been made towards the £5 million endowment fund. The museums have asked Anthony d’Offay, to serve as an unpaid ex officio curator for a period of 5 years, and he has agreed. Anthony d’Offay’s donation also includes the gallery archive of over 1,000 boxes which provides a unique record of contemporary art over a thirty year period. John Leighton, Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “Anthony d’Offay’s immense generosity and powerful vision lie behind this innovative partnership. At a stroke our level of ambition has been raised to a new height and there is now the potential to bring great modern art to our publics, not just in Edinburgh and London, but right across the country, from St Ives to Stromness.” Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate said: “A gift of this magnitude will completely transform the opportunity to experience contemporary art in the UK. Anthony d'Offay’s imaginative generosity establishes a new dynamic for national collections and is without precedent anywhere in the world.” Carole Souter, Director of NHMF said: “Anthony d'Offay's wonderful collection of modern and contemporary art is one of the most important in private hands anywhere in the world. The National Heritage Memorial Fund's £7 million grant is safeguarding an extraordinarily rich collection of works for future generations to explore and enjoy." David Barrie, Director of The Art Fund, said: "Anthony d’Offay's exceptional generosity has given us a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform the nation’s collections of the very best international modern art. The Art Fund, the only private sector contributor to the funding package, has given the second largest grant in its history to ensure that this extraordinary collection can be a source of inspiration to everyone throughout the UK, now and always.” Linda Fabiani MSP, Minister for Europe, External Affairs & Culture said: “This is a hugely significant acquisition for the National Galleries and for Scotland - it adds real weight to the cultural renaissance we are experiencing here. The quality and acclaim of the works on display reinforces our reputation as arts enthusiasts and shows Scotland as a serious player on the cultural stage. The collection offers an opportunity to both inspire and engage with the widest range of people, in particular our young people. The doors to modern art have been well and truly opened for everyone in Scotland – I want to see everyone, young and old, from Scotland and beyond, visiting Artist Rooms and experiencing the very best in contemporary art.” Press Enquiries: Patricia Convery, National Galleries of Scotland Tel: 0131 624 6325 Helen Beeckmans, Head of Press, Tate Tel: 020 7887 4940 Erica Bolton, Bolton & Quinn Tel: 020 7221 5000 (5 lines) Angela-Claire Coutts Communications Officer for Minister for Europe, External Affairs & Culture Tel: 0131 244 2547 Notes to Editors: Anthony d’Offay Born in Sheffield in 1940, Anthony d'Offay studied art at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1962. Whilst at the University, he fell in love with the collections of the National Gallery of Scotland. Years later he described walking round the galleries on The Mound as “the defining experience of my life”. In 1969, the year in which the gallery moved to Dering Street, he organised the ground breaking Abstract Art in England 1913-1915, which became an Arts Council touring show. Exhibitions followed dedicated to the largely forgotten period of English painting from 1910 to 1940, including Vorticism, Bloomsbury and the Camden Town Group. Scholarly shows included Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Spencer Gore, Gwen John, Stanley Spencer, Wyndham Lewis and Eric Gill. Anthony d’Offay became interested in contemporary art and began to include shows by living artists in the gallery’s programme. These included Lucian Freud in 1972, Gilbert & George, 1972, Michael Andrews, 1974, William Coldstream, 1976, Eduardo Paolozzi 1977, Frank Auerbach, 1978, Richard Long, 1978 and Richard Hamilton in 1980. In 1977 he married Anne Seymour, a curator with many years experience in the Modern Collection at the Tate Gallery, who had a special interest in avant-garde international art. In 1980 they opened a gallery for contemporary art 23 Dering Street, a uniquely large space for London at that time. They, together with Marie-Louise Laband, Director of the gallery, inaugurated a programme of international contemporary art, starting with a seminal exhibition by Joseph Beuys, Stripes from the House of the Shaman in August 1980. The intention was to show the greatest contemporary art being made, much of which was largely unknown to the British public at that time. Over the years, the gallery in London presented a large number of highly acclaimed exhibitions by some of the greatest artists of our time. Many of these shows later travelled to public institutions in Britain and abroad. In addition to the shows made for the spaces in London, the Gallery was involved in organising important exhibitions for museums and public galleries around the world. The gallery closed in 2001. Anthony d’Offay has brought many important exhibitions to Edinburgh including Joseph Beuys, Gilbert & George, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Jannis Kounellis, Ed Ruscha and Robert Mapplethorpe. Most recently at the Royal Scottish Academy he initiated two major Festival exhibitions: in 2006 Ron Mueck attracted more than 125,000 visitors and last year’s Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life and Death was seen by nearly 100,000 people. National Heritage Memorial Fund The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) is the ‘fund of last resort’ for the nation’s heritage, coming to the rescue by funding acquisitions in memory of those who gave their lives for this country. In recognition of the vital role it plays and to help meet an increasing number of applications, the Government initially doubled NHMF’s income from £5million to £10million for 2007/08 and recently confirmed this increased funding until 2011. For further information about the NHMF, please contact Dervish Mertcan or Alex Gaskell at NHMF press office: 020 7591 6102/6032 or 07973 613 820. www.nhmf.org.uk The Art Fund The Art Fund is the UK’s leading independent art charity. It offers grants to help UK museums and galleries enrich their collections and campaigns widely on behalf of museums and their visitors. It is entirely funded from public donations and has 80,000 members. Since 1903 the charity has helped museums and galleries all over the UK secure 860,000 works of art for their collections. In January 2007 The Art Fund successfully led the public appeal to save JMW Turner’s Blue Rigi for Tate, and in July 2007 was instrumental in putting together a unique funding package to ensure Dumfries House in Ayrshire was secured for the nation. Independent of government, The Art Fund is uniquely placed to campaign on behalf of public collections across the UK and led the campaign to extend free admission to all national museums and galleries, which achieved success in 2001. Visit the charity’s website at www.artfund.org. For further information about The Art Fund contact Hannah Fox, Head of Press, on 020 7225 4888, 07912 777761 or [email protected]
Please find below our programme of exhibitions and displays for the coming months. For further information on any of these, please contact the Press Office on 0131 624 6325/314/332/247, or [email protected] Information may also be found on our website www.nationalgalleries.org NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS 2007/ 2008 NOTES: Current as of January 2008. Information is subject to change. **Denotes major summer exhibition General opening hours: National Gallery of Scotland Complex / Scottish National Portrait Gallery Monday–Sunday 10am–5pm except Thursday 10am–7pm Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art / Dean Gallery Monday–Sunday 10am–5pm BACK TO THE FUTURE: SIR BASIL SPENCE 1907–1976 19 October 2007 – 10 February 2008 DEAN GALLERY, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission free A collaboration between the National Galleries of Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Sir Basil Spence, the Dean Gallery will host an exhibition dedicated to the iconic architect this autumn. Spence is arguably Scotland’s most renowned modern architect. His numerous buildings and his belief that modern architecture could serve all society propelled this Scotsman into a position in which he became a willing and frequent spokesperson for modern architecture in this country and internationally. His range of projects, which includes grand private houses (Gribloch in Stirlingshire), social housing (in Glasgow’s Gorbals), exhibition architecture (for the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow, 1938, and for the Festival of Britain, 1951), major public commissions (most famously the new Coventry Cathedral) and numerous university and civic buildings, affected and continues to affect the lives of many. The exhibition will be drawn from the extensive Sir Basil Spence Archive, which comprises in excess of 30,000 drawings, photographs, sketch-books, models and news cuttings. The archive was recently gifted by the Spence family to the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland with the aim of cataloguing and making it more widely accessible to the public. This exhibition, the largest ever dedicated to Spence, will be held as part of a larger series of events and workshops, aiming to foster debate on the architectural heritage of Basil Spence and on our built environment as a whole. JOAN EARDLEY 6 November 2007 – 13 January 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission £6.00 (concessions £4.00) The unique talent of Joan Eardley, one of Scotland’s most popular twentieth century artists, will be celebrated in this major new exhibition. The first large-scale retrospective of Eardley’s work for almost 20 years, the exhibition will include around 70 paintings and 40 works on paper, as well as photographs taken by Eardley and her friend Audrey Walker. Best known for her sympathetic depiction of children in the streets and tenements of Glasgow, and for her freely painted and dramatic treatments of the sea and landscape of Scotland’s north-east coast, Eardley is a major figure in the history of post-war Scottish art. This much-anticipated survey of her tragically brief career will bring together important loans from collections across the UK, including a number of works that have not been on public display for many years. The exhibition will offer a timely reminder of Eardley’s remarkable talent, and an opportunity for a new generation to see the work of this much-loved artist. It will also contribute to a wider re-assessment of Eardley’s contribution to British art in the last century. MATERNITY 10 November 2007 – 12 January 2008, Monday to Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm INVERNESS MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY, Castle Wynd, Inverness, IV2 3EB Admission free This new exhibition, based on images of the mother and child from the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland, will open at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery this November. Comprising a selection of eleven very different images, Maternity will explore the theme of motherhood in art, and consider how it has been interpreted and re-interpreted by artists over the past 500 years. The works on show will range from the early Renaissance to the present day, and will include works by Sandro Botticelli, George Romney, William Quiller Orchardson, and Pablo Picasso. Maternity will feature one of the most touching examples of the theme in Western painting, Botticelli’s fifteenth-century masterpiece The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child. Acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland in 2000, this celebrated painting, which is the earliest work in the display, combines a complex theological narrative with a very human depiction of a young mother and her baby. Maternity is presented in partnership with Highland 2007 and The Highland Council and reflects the National Galleries of Scotland’s active involvement with art and culture in the Highland region. This partnership underlines one of the Galleries’ core aims – making the national art collection accessible to the widest possible number of visitors. INDIAN INTERLUDE 10 November 2007 – 3 February 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission free A new display of artworks from India will open at the National Gallery Complex this autumn, to coincide with two dramatic milestones in the history of the subcontinent - the 60th anniversary of Indian independence and the 150th anniversary of the Indian Uprising. Indian Interlude is part of a programme of National Galleries events celebrating the shared histories of Scotland and India. The exhibition of 28 items will feature a number of works that have never been displayed before, and will include exquisite eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Indian miniature paintings from the National Galleries of Scotland’s permanent collection, as well as sketches of everyday India, drawn by British artists working there at the same period. These sketches and four related volumes are part of the Mrs Madeleine Sharpe Erskine Bequest – known as The Dunimarle Collection – a special loan to the National Galleries, and the core of displays at Duff House, the country-house gallery in Banff, which is run in partnership with Historic Scotland and Aberdeenshire Council. The exotic Indian paintings were collected by the Edinburgh bookseller and distinguished member of the Society of Antiquaries, David Laing, who left a collection of paintings in his will to encourage the establishment of a historical portrait gallery for Scotland. This was the forerunner of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Laing’s Indian portraits include stylised images of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb; the Nawab of Murshidabad; elegant, single figures, and groups of bejewelled women drinking wine on terraces. BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2007 14 December 2007 – 27 April 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen Street, Edinburgh Admission free For only the second time in its history, the BP Portrait Award exhibition will be shown in Edinburgh this year, where it will be the highlight of the winter programme at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Organised by the National Portrait Gallery in London, the BP Portrait Award promotes the best in contemporary portrait painting, by encouraging artists to focus upon and develop the theme of portraiture in their work. First established in 1980 – and in its eighteenth year of BP sponsorship – the award is one of the most prestigious visual arts prizes in the world. The main prize, which this year went to Glasgow-born artist Paul Emsley, carries an award of £25,000, plus a commission worth £4,000. The exhibition comprises a selection of 60 of the most impressive works submitted to this year’s competition, which attracted a record 1,870 entries. It will feature works by artists from around the world, including entrants from the USA, Germany, Norway, Israel and, of course, Scotland. CAROL RHODES 1 December 2007 – 24 February 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission free This exhibition will celebrate the work of the highly regarded contemporary British artist Carol Rhodes. Born in 1959, Rhodes studied at Glasgow School of Art and emerged in the mid-1990s as a significant voice in contemporary painting. The largest survey of Rhodes’ paintings to date, this exhibition will cover the past fifteen years of her career, exploring the artist’s distinctive approach to landscape and intense investigation into her medium. Rhodes’ subject matter – flat, desolate environments, painted as though viewed from a great height – contrasts with the small formats she employs. The resulting images are powerful, dense and beautiful. Working in oil paint on board, she frequently depicts ‘functional’ landscapes that have been manipulated by human activity, but whose nature and purpose are not clear. Rhodes has exhibited regularly in the UK and USA, but her painstaking methods – distilling images from imagined, observed and photographed landscapes – have meant that it is rare for her work to be seen in depth. This show will allow a clearer appreciation of her achievement. TURNER IN JANUARY: THE VAUGHAN BEQUEST 1 – 31 January 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission free The New Year begins at the National Gallery of Scotland with its annual display of magnificent watercolours by J M W Turner (1775–1851), bequeathed in 1900 by the London art collector Sir Henry Vaughan. Turner is recognised as perhaps the greatest of all British painters, and was a master of watercolour painting, using the medium to create stunning land and seascapes, topographical views and designs for book illustrations. The Vaughan Bequest display is shown throughout January every year, and has been a popular feature of the Gallery’s exhibition calendar for more than one hundred years. Keiller Library display THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF SURREALISM: THE WORK OF GRACE PAILTHORPE AND REUBEN MEDNIKOFF 12 January – 20 April 2008 DEAN GALLERY, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission free This display will be drawn from the archive of Reuben Mednikoff (1906-72) and Dr Grace Pailthorpe (1883–1971), which was purchased by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1999. Mednikoff, a poet and artist who was involved with the British Surrealists, first met Pailthorpe, a psychoanalyst, in 1935. He introduced her to the use of automatism – the suspension of rational control which allowed Surrealist writers and artists to tap into the imagery of the subconscious – and encouraged her to produce her own drawings and poems. Alongside Mednikoff's works, these formed the basis of the couple’s research into the unconscious (in 1939 Pailthorpe published an essay on ‘The Scientific Aspects of Surrealism’ in the London Bulletin, the main outlet for Surrealist ideas in Britain). Chosen to exhibit at the International Surrealist Exhibition held in London in 1936, their paintings were singled out for praise by André Breton, the ‘pope’ of Surrealism, ‘as the best and most truly Surrealist of the works’ exhibited by British artists. JOANNA KANE THE SOMNAMBULISTS: PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS FROM BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY 22 January – 6 April 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen Street, Edinburgh Admission free The Somnambulists will consist of a haunting series of photographic portraits taken from a famous Edinburgh collection of life and death masks. Using contemporary digital techniques, the artist, Joanna Kane, will reach into the past to bring figures from Scottish history to life. Animating her portraits to suggest an illusory sense of the living subject of the cast, Kane magically renders photographic likenesses from before the age of photography. The exhibition will pose questions about portraiture, the history and origins of photography, connections between photography and the life or death mask, and the influences of phrenology on art. It will continue the Portrait Gallery’s commitment to showcasing innovative digital work by emerging Scottish artists. The display will also include examples of life and death masks from the collection of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. REUNITED: RUBENS – RIBERA 31 January – 6 April 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission free This display will offer the public a unique opportunity to compare two outstanding masterpieces of baroque painting – the National Gallery’s own Feast of Herod (c.1635-40) by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, and the extraordinary Drunken Silenus (1626) by Jusepe de Ribera. In the mid-seventeenth century the two paintings hung together in the palace of Gaspare Roomer, a fabulously wealthy Flemish merchant and financier based in Naples. Generously lent by the city’s Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, the Drunken Silenus is painted with a startling naturalism that reflects the lasting impact of Caravaggio’s late works, which were also painted in Naples. WARDER’S CHOICE 9 February – 27 April 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission free This exhibition has been selected by the National Gallery of Scotland’s warding and front-of-house staff. Responsible for the safety and security both of artworks and the visiting public, the warders spend much of their working day in the galleries surrounded by the collections, and many have a fantastic knowledge of and love for the works of art in their charge. For this exhibition the warding and front-of-house staff have been invited to choose their own personal favourites from the gallery’s collection of prints and drawings. The diverse range of works that have been selected reflects not only the breadth of our prints and drawings collection, but also the personal interests and tastes of each member of staff involved. MIROSLAV BALKA: ENTERING PARADISE 1 March – 29 June 2008. SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission free Miroslav Balka is one of the most important Polish artists today. This display brings together his print portfolio Entering Paradise, presenting the traces of twelve anonymous men, with the contemplative video projection BlueGasEyes. Poignant and subtle, Balka’s works engage with notions of memory, identity and history, all the while pointing towards the frailty of the human body. FROM SICKERT TO GERTLER: MODERN BRITISH ART FROM BOXTED HOUSE 15 March – 22 June 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission free This exhibition will celebrate the lives of Bobby and Natalie Bevan and the collection of artworks that hung in their home, Boxted House in Essex, which became a gathering place for artists after the Second World War. It will include some outstanding examples of twentieth-century British art, as well as more unusual and private works, and archival material from the period 1894-1970. The Bevans lived at Boxted House from 1946 until 1974. Bobby (1901-74) was the son of the artists Robert Bevan (1865-1925) and Stanislawa de Karlowska (1876-1952) and was Chairman of the leading advertising agency S H Benson Ltd. The painter and ceramicist Natalie Denny (1909-2007), a renowned beauty and hostess, also modelled for artists such as Mark Gertler. Bobby and Natalie married in 1946. Together they created an exceptional home at Boxted. Paintings by Bobby’s parents and their friends, such as Walter Sickert, Harold Gilman and Charles Ginner, hung beside works by Bobby and Natalie’s own friends, including Christopher Nevinson, John Armstrong and Frederick Gore. The house became a gathering place for artists, particularly for those associated with East Anglia, such as John Nash, Cedric Morris and Lett Haines. This exhibition will celebrate the colourful character of Boxted House, its hosts, its guests and the works of art which filled its walls. MATERNITY: IMAGES OF MOTHERHOOD 15 March – 22 June 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission free This exhibition of works from the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland explores the theme of motherhood in art, showing how the image of the mother and child has endured and been re-interpreted by artists over the past 500 years. The works on show will range from the early Renaissance to the present day, including examples by Sandro Botticelli, George Romney, Pablo Picasso and Christine Borland. This exhibition was first shown this winter at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery in partnership with Highland 2007 and the Highland Council. FACES AND PLACES 24 April – 20 July 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen St, Edinburgh Admission free This exhibition will be organised by the Portrait Gallery in partnership with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, to highlight individuals who have contributed to Scotland’s heritage and built environment. Drawing on the collections of the two institutions, the display will celebrate the work of around twenty archaeologists, antiquarians, engineers, architects and industrialists. A range of items will feature in the display, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, photographs, architectural drawings, notebooks and sketches – some of which have never previously been displayed. The exhibition will coincide with the centenary of RCAHMS in 2008 and is part of the programme of celebratory events, which also includes the major autumn RCAHMS exhibition - Treasured Places. Keiller Library display FOCUS ON DEMARCO 26 April – 21 June 2008 DEAN GALLERY, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission free This display will celebrate the completion of the Demarco Digital Archive Project and the public launch of the project’s website. This three-year project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is a collaboration between the School of Fine Art of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (Dundee University), the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Demarco European Art Foundation. The website will make accessible approximately 10,000 items (including photographs, documents and audio-visual material) from the archive of the celebrated artist and exhibition organiser, Richard Demarco. The display will feature a selection of archival material held by the Foundation and the SNGMA. FANTASY AND FUNCTION: DESIGN FOR GOLDSMITHS 3 May – 3 August 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission free This display from the Department of Prints and Drawings will feature around thirty intricately engraved designs for jewellery, tableware and ornaments. These fabulous designs, ranging from tiny grotesque fantasies from sixteenth-century France to dazzling designs for commemorative tablewear in the nineteenth century, were produced by highly skilled engravers and provided both inspiration and instruction for gold and silversmiths. They reveal not only the skill and virtuosity of printmakers but also the ambition and ingenuity of the craftsmen working in this field of the applied arts. TRUE GRIT May – September 2008 (details to be confirmed) SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen St, Edinburgh Admission to be confirmed This exhibition will examine the lives of individuals who were promoted as role models, through art and literature, in the Victorian era. With particular reference to the theories outlined by the writer and reformer Samuel Smiles in his 1859 book Self-Help, the exhibition will also critically re-examine what we mean by ‘Victorian values’. Drawn from the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland, True Grit will also bring together manuscripts and archival material from the National Library of Scotland, and a selection of internationally important artworks from other collections. Many of the exhibits, including material from the John Murray Archive recently acquired by the National Library, will be on public display for the first time. **VANITY FAIR PORTRAITS: PHOTOGRAPHS 1913 – 2008 14 June - 21 September 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen Street, Edinburgh Admission price to be confirmed Exhibition organised by the National Portrait Gallery, London Sponsored by Lloyds TSB Scotland Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913–2008, will showcase some of the greatest portrait photographs of the twentieth century, which were taken for, or published in, Vanity Fair magazine. The exhibition will feature some 150 images from the high profile magazine’s early period (1913–36), which will be displayed, for the first time, with photographs from the contemporary Vanity Fair (1983-present). Vanity Fair Portraits will include celebrated subjects such as Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin and Jean Harlow as captured by legendary photographers including Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Baron De Meyer, Man Ray and George Hurrell. From the magazine’s re-launch in 1983, the works of photographers including Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, Bruce Weber and Mario Testino will be featured, depicting a wide range of subjects from Arthur Miller to Madonna. Vanity Fair Portraits will tour to Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles / LACMA (26 October 2008 – 1 March 2009); and the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia (12 June – 30 August 2009). **FOTO MODERNITY IN CENTRAL EUROPE, 1918 – 1945 7 June – 31 Aug 2008 DEAN GALLERY, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission £6.00 (concessions £4.00) Organised by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Dean Gallery’s festival exhibition will explore the breathtaking success of modernist photography in Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Austria, during a time of tremendous social and political upheaval. The first survey ever carried out on this subject, Foto will include many stunning works that will be shown in Britain for the first time. The exhibition will be unprecedented in scope, comprising more than 150 photographs, books, and illustrated magazines. More than 100 photographers will be represented, and the exhibition will address topics such as photomontage and war, gender identity, life and leisure in the modern metropolis, and the spread of Surrealism. The work of internationally recognised masters such as László Moholy-Nagy, Hannah Höch, André Kertész, and El Lissitzky will be shown alongside that of historically important contemporaries such as Karel Teige, Edith Tudor Hart, František Drtikol, Martin Munkacsi and Trude Fleischmann. This will be the only European showing of this magnificent exhibition. THE FACE OF SCOTLAND 5 July – 25 August 2008 KIRKCUDBRIGHT TOWN HALL, St Mary’s Street, Kirkcudbright Admission free As part of Kirkcudbright’s annual programme of visual art and craft events in 2008, this exhibition will present a selection of over forty major portraits on loan from the permanent collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Among the works featured will be Raeburn’s enchanting portrait of Walter Ross, The Yellow Boy – which was only recently discovered and has never before been seen in a public space. The show will also include portraits of a group of sporting greats including Eric Liddell, Jock Stein and Kenny Dalgleish. This partnership underlines one of the Galleries’ core aims – making the national art collection accessible to the widest possible number of visitors. SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW: DRAWINGS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS RECENTLY ACQUIRED BY THE NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND 17 July – 21 September 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission free This exhibition will present a rich and varied selection of the best works on paper and photographs acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland over recent years. The selection of approximately seventy works will span the period from the Renaissance to the present day, and will include a broad range of media and techniques. Among the highlights will be a vibrant sketch of the Holy Family by the eighteenth-century Venetian painter Tiepolo; an important early watercolour by nineteenth-century Scottish artist E A Walton; a contemporary pastel portrait of the actress Tilda Swinton by her husband John Byrne; spectacular aerial photographs taken by Alfred Buckham in the 1920s; a striking self-portrait by the celebrated American photographer Lee Miller; and Picasso’s harrowing etching Weeping Woman. **IMPRESSIONISM AND SCOTLAND 19 July – 12 October 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission to be confirmed Sponsored by Baillie Gifford This major international exhibition will explore the Scottish taste for Impressionism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and its impact on two generations of artists in Scotland. The label ‘Impressionism’ was, in this period, applied to artists as diverse as Whistler, Corot, McTaggart and the Glasgow Boys. This exhibition of over 100 works will include paintings, pastels and watercolours by these artists, as well as by Monet, Manet, Degas, Sisley, Pissarro, Renoir, Van Gogh, Seurat, Cézanne, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Scottish Colourists. Highlights of the show will include Degas’s L’Absinthe (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), which was famously hissed at when it came up for auction in 1892, and Lavery’s The Tennis Party (Aberdeen Art Gallery), a rare example of Scottish modern life painting. Other major Impressionist works will be on loan from private and public collections in the UK, Germany, the USA and Australia. **TRACEY EMIN Early August (to be confirmed) – 9 November 2008 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 73 Belford Road, Edinburgh Admission to be confirmed Tracey Emin is one of the most celebrated artists of her generation, yet remarkably this will be the first retrospective exhibition of her work to be held in the UK. Born in London in 1963, she grew up in the Kent seaside resort town of Margate and studied Royal College of Art in London from 1987 to 1989. Emin’s work draws directly upon her personal experiences, and often refers to traumatic episodes in her early life (being raped at the age of 13, her sexually promiscuous adolescence and a failed suicide attempt). Her first solo exhibition, My Major Retrospective, held at the White Cube Gallery in London in 1993, featured embroidered blankets, letters, mementos and photographs relating to such experiences. Emin’s great achievement is to have drawn upon her background – the sort of background that a lot of people share, but which is largely uncharted territory in the world of art – and to have done so in a manner that is neither tragic nor sentimental. The forthcoming retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art will occupy the entire ground floor of the gallery and feature work dating from 1993 to the present day. It will include embroidered textiles, paintings, drawings, early unpublished prints, installations, photographs, sculptures, neon works and much new work, made specifically for the exhibition. [working title] FOOTLIGHTS: 9 August – 16 November 2008 NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh Admission free This display will feature works from the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland and will look at ways in which artists over the centuries have chosen to record events and performances. The show will coincide with the SIBMAS international conference, which will be held in Glasgow in August 2008. This is first time this prestigious event has been held in Scotland. SIBMAS (Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle) is the international association for museums and libraries of the performing arts. The display will also coincide with the International Festival and Fringe events in Edinburgh and will serve as a link between the visual and performing arts. JOHN MUIR WOOD AND THE ORIGINS OF LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY IN SCOTLAND 2 August – 26 October 2008 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen St, Edinburgh Admission free This exhibition will be the first to investigate the origins of landscape photography in Scotland. It will concentrate on images produced between 1840 and 1860, and in particular on the work of John Muir Wood, arguably Scotland’s first systematic landscape photographer. With bulky camera equipment, Muir Wood travelled by steamer along the Firth of Clyde, exploring the geography of Arran, Bute and the north Ayrshire coast. The exhibition will engage with a wider specialist and public interest in landscape questions and will contribute to a reconsideration of the practice of early photographers currently underway in Britain and abroad. The exhibition will also contextualise Muir Wood’s imagery by displaying examples of the landscape practice of other early photographers, including Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill, Thomas Keith, Horatio Ross and W H F Talbot. We witness the emergence of a new creative form as each struggled to express the Scottish landscape imagination through photography. THE INTIMATE PORTRAIT: DRAWINGS, MINIATURES AND PASTELS FROM RAMSAY TO LAWRENCE 25 October 2008 – 1 February 2009 SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, 1 Queen Street, Edinburgh Admission free This exhibition will explore the fascination for intimate portraiture in Georgian and Regency Britain between the late 1740s and the 1830s, from the origins of polite society and the rise of the fashionable art world until the onset of the Victorian era and the invention of photography. This will be the first major show devoted to this great period of British portrait drawing and miniature painting, when artists such as Ramsay, Gainsborough, Cosway, Skirving, Lawrence and Wilkie produced wonderfully worked portraits in pencil, chalks, watercolours and pastels, as well as miniatures on ivory, that were intended to be hung as finished works in domestic rooms, or worn on the body to represent absent loved ones. This will be a unique partnership exhibition between the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, and will also draw on the collection of the National Gallery of Scotland. The exhibition will travel to the British Museum in London during spring 2009.