Portrait of a Gallery: 175 Years of Art
Scottish Gallery
16 Dundas Street
0131 558 1200
www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Until 3 June
Mon – Fri, 10am – 6pm; Sat 10am – 4pm
The Scottish Gallery, near the top of Edinburgh’s Dundas Street in the heart of the New Town, celebrates its 175th anniversary this month with a rich set of exhibitions. Scotland’s oldest privately owned commercial gallery and one of its longest continually-trading businesses, it was originally located on South St David Street. Set up in 1842 by Aitken Dott as a business of “Gilders, Framers and Artists’ Colourmen”, it also displayed the work of Scottish artists. It was this section of the business that became the Scottish Gallery in 1897.
If you want a snapshot of the gallery, historically, think William Gillies, Samuel Peploe, Elizabeth Blackadder, Joan Eardley, Barbara Rae, and indeed Duncan Shanks, whose richly-coloured, tangled landscapes currently dominate the first floor gallery space, an acrylic soaking-into of the landscape titled “A Winter Journey.”
The gallery’s dedication to applied arts, too, has been a strong suit under Director Christina Jansen, from ceramics to glassware and the gallery’s continuous stock of some of the best names in contemporary jewellery.
Portrait of a Gallery, downstairs, exhibits fine works from some of the big names for which the Gallery is known alongside a “Birthday Exhibition” of new small works specially commissioned for the anniversary from over 100 artists. Amidst the small paintings, applied artists have created a diverse and representative collection of commemorative pins, tiny jewels of applied art.
The gallery has also fleshed out the story on the walls in a pleasantly weighty book on the origins and life of the gallery and its artists, a fascinating overview of this ever-distinguished Edinburgh gallery.
Sarah Urwin Jones
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