Artmag | May 5 2023

Issue 262

5 May, 2023

• Dear Billy writer Gary McNair, See PERFORMING ARTS page 45.

ART BOOKS

A copy of Shadows and Light: The Extraordinary Life of James McBey. See page 32.

Published by Instant Publications Ltd., 0131 661 0765

Publisher Christie Dessy, publisher@artmag.co.uk

Editor Ian Sclater, editor@artmag.co.uk

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Special Features Susan Mansfield

Contributing writers Julie Boyne, Sofia Cotrona, Vivien Devlin, Danele Evans, Malcolm McGonigle, Amy Miles, Gordon Reid, Eilidh Tuckett, Joanna Zuchowska Design & Production www.uprightcreative.com

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© 2023 Instant Publications Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without the written permission of the Publisher. Instant Publications does not accept responsibility for unsolicited material. ADVISORY Readers are advised to check all listed information before attending an exhibition or event.

Uprooted Visions Edinburgh Printmakers

Until Jul 2

Featuring print, textiles, video, sculpture and photography, this is the culmination of a series of residencies hosted across five European printmaking studios, including Edinburgh Printmakers, which supported artists whose practices have been disrupted by displacement and migration. For some, including several Ukrainian artists, the experience is more recent, while others have developed their careers over decades in their new home countries.

Now living in the UK, Ireland and across Europe, 30 artists from around the world, including Syria, Ukraine, Bosnia Herzegovina, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Kosovo and Turkey, have created new works exploring themes such as the concept of home, the enduring experience of war, the nature of moving across borders and changing selfidentity.

The Creative Europefunded project also offered month-long residencies at print studios in Amsterdam, Cork, Ljubljana, Slovenia and Odense, providing space to experiment, work with studio technicians and discover new techniques. edinburghprintmakers.co.uk

Mary Quant: Fashion Revolutionary Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum

May 20-Oct 22

The major retrospective of Dame Mary Quant, one of Britain’s most iconic and celebrated fashion designers, is the final chance to see this touring exhibition, which features over 100 garments, accessories, cosmetics and photographs drawn from tour organiser the V&A’s extensive collections, Dame Mary Quant’s archive and many private collections following a public appeal. Focusing on the years from 1955, when Quant opened her experimental boutique Bazaar on the King’s Road, Chelsea, through the “Swinging Sixties”, when Mary Quant was awarded her OBE, and up to 1975, it showcases the period when Quant revolutionised the high street with her subversive and playful designs for a younger generation. glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/venues/kelvingroveart-gallery-and-museum

Inception Art Show

Dalkeith Palace

Until 14 May

The return of this popular showcase sees 35 modern and contemporary sculptors, photographers, artists and painters take over the early 18th century palace in Dalkeith Country Park.

New to the exhibition this year is an evening Art & Supper event featuring Scotland’s foremost contemporary art advocate Richard Demarco CBE along with selected Inception artists. Other additions include a programme of artist-led workshops, palace tours and an online charity auction in aid of Make 2nds Count, a charity dedicated to supporting women and men living with secondary breast cancer. dalkeithcountrypark.co.uk/event/inception-art-show Annalisa Merrilees, 150223, oil, pencil & spray paint on board

Rezan Arab, Untitled, etching

The Glasgow Girls and Boys Inverness Museum & Art Gallery Until Jul 15

In the late 19th century a group of young artists training at the Glasgow School of Art rebelled against the high Victorian enthusiasm for theatrical Highland scenes and sentimental “story pictures”. Instead, they depicted the reality of contemporary rural life and in doing so heralded the beginnings of modernism in Scottish painting. Strongly influenced in subject matter and technique by the documentary French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage and the graphic geometry of Japanese prints, the “Boys” found national and international fame through a series of exhibitions in the 1890s, while “the Girls” had to wait for recognition until 1968, when the term was first coined in the catalogue for, ironically, another exhibition of work by their male counterparts.

This selection is part of The Fleming Collection, considered the finest collection of Scottish art outside public institutions, comprising over 600 works from the 17th century to the present day. highlifehighland.com/ inverness-museum-and-artgallery

David Page: Taken for Granted City Contemporary Art, Perth May 6-31

Based on the Isle of Mull in Scotland and County Antrim in Northern Ireland, artist David Page presents his beautiful and intense abstract acrylic paintings in The Room, the gallery’s dedicated solo show space. Look out in the main room for the CCA Summer Show (May 13-Aug 6), featuring gallery regulars Adrian Wiszniewski RSA, Ian Cook RI RSW RGI, Fiona Haldane, Jonathan Mitchell, Garry Harper, Philip Braham RSA, Fee Dickson Reid, Greer Ralston, Mark Beresford, Nael Hanna and Jonathan Shearer ccart.co.uk

40th Anniversary Exhibition Aberfeldy Gallery Until May 29

This exhibition at Aberfeldy Gallery celebrates one of Scotland’s longest running galleries. Current owners Adam and Anna Seward took over the gallery in 2017 after 19 years under the ownership of Judy Proudfoot. Anna’s connection to the gallery dates back to its inception, as her grandparents, Roger and Merril Sylvester, made up half of the quartet who ran the gallery for its first 15 years. The anniversary exhibition features contemporary art by over 50 established and emerging artists based in Scotland. aberfeldygallery.co.uk

Jenny Matthews, Spring Colours

David Page, Immutable

Flora Macdonald Reid, Fieldworkers © The Fleming Collection

Liz Myhill & Lucy Newton: Into the Wild Scottish Ornithologists’ Club, Aberlady

Until Jun 4

This exhibition brings together two artists who share a passion for the diversity of the natural world in Scotland. Both immerse themselves in nature, painting outdoors from life to better capture their subject in a particular moment. Their work is full of energy and invention, in turn gentle or raw, detailed or suggestive. They also share a preference for watercolour, often mixing in other media such as crayons and charcoal.

Liz Myhill has a deep-rooted connection to her native Isle of Skye and the Highlands and Islands. This collection includes both field paintings and fine art prints such as collagraphs and etchings. She was the Swarovski Optik & Birdwatch Magazine Artist of the Year in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Highland Art Prize in 2022. She is an elected member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour.

Lucy Newton’s collection ranges from seasonal birds visiting our coastlines to long established badgers’ setts. She explains: “I enjoy depicting both the bright, brilliant beauty as well as the most clever, subtle camouflage of our varied wildlife. In order to try and capture this diversity, I will often vary my medium, style or even the pace at which I work, giving a different energy to each piece.” the-soc.org.uk

Basia Roszak

Larks Gallery, Ballater

Throughout May

Featured artist Basia Roszak left her roots in Poland and emigrated to Canada before moving to the UK. She has been residing in Glasgow since 1998. She attempts to bring this multicultural experience to life in her work, using both traditional media (oils, watercolours, ink) and new media (computer animation, computer graphic design). She has an HND in Graphic Design and a BSC (with distinction) in Media Technology and Digital Art. larksgallery.com

Spring Exhibition

Torrance Gallery, Edinburgh

Until May 14

This show features over 40 artists, some exhibiting at the gallery for the first time, including Rosalind Walker, Brett Watson, Carolyn Bell, Daniel Martin and Al Bell. With a range of price points and styles, artwork is being sold “off the wall”, so you can take your purchase away with you rather than have to wait until the end of the show. The gallery offers free or assisted P&P rates for both UK and international delivery. torrancegallery.co.uk

Lucy Newton, Goldfinch Late Summer

Jean Hall, Midhope Afternoon Sun

Basia Roszak, The Cherry Tree

20th Birthday Exhibition

Morningside Gallery, Edinburgh

Until May 13

There is still time to help the gallery celebrate its landmark anniversary with a mixed show of work by favourites such as Simon Laurie RSW RGI, Marion Drummond, Gordon Wilson, Marie Scott, Peter Foyle and Jennifer Mackenzie. morningsidegallery.co.uk

fees apply

Five Centuries

Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh

May 17 & 18

Paddles at the ready to bid for a huge range of items, including furniture, paintings, candlesticks, lamps, mirrors, clocks, house accessories, miniatures, glassware, tea caddies, panels, needlework and much more. lyonandturnbull.com

Spring Exhibition

Glasgow Gallery

Until May 20

This exhibition features seascapes, landscapes and cityscapes as well as glasswork, woodwork and jewellery. Artists include Sheena Christie, who is new to the gallery, and Nichol Wheatley (ahead of his solo show in June) along with gallery favourites Senja Brendon, John Bathgate, Scott MacDonald, David Marshall and Helen L. Robertson. glasgowgallery.co.uk

Scott MacDonald, Camusdarach

Eoghan Bridge, Rotundus

18th century Irish oak drop-leaf table with 19th century carving, Lot 26, est. £1,000-£1,500,

Artist Rooms: Diane Arbus

Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries Until Jul 29

Diane Arbus (1923-71) was one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Widely considered to be a pioneer of the social documentary method of photography which blurred the line between art and reportage, she captured moments which personified the variety of attitudes, cultures, lifestyles and appearances across society. Her images emphasise the importance of trust and respect between photographer and subject.

On loan from the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, this selection of work is part of a touring collection which makes exceptional works of international post-war and contemporary art available to institutions across the UK for use in high profile monographic exhibitions. Since its launch in 2008, some 40 million people have visited Artist Rooms exhibitions. dgculture.co.uk

RSA 197th Annual Exhibition Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

May 6-Jun 118

The highlight of the RSA’s year-round exhibition programme, the Annual Exhibition is the largest and longest running exhibition of contemporary art in Scotland, providing a platform for painting, sculpture, film, printmaking, photography and installation alongside work by some of the country’s leading architects.

This year the exhibition encompasses both the physical and digital, combining the exhibition of artworks on display in the galleries with those shown online, some exclusively designed as such and others as companions to work in the galleries.

The RSA participates in the Own Art scheme, which enables collectors to purchase artwork in 10 monthly, interest-free instalments. royalscottishacademy.org

Diane Arbus, A young man and his pregnant wife in Washington Square Park, NYC, 1965, Image: Artist Rooms, Tate & National Galleries of Scotland © The Estate of Diane Arbus

Molly Marshalsey & Naoimh O’ Shea Maisie & Mac, Cupar

Until Jul 10

A graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee, Molly Marshalsey specialises in surface design inspired by urban architectural structures and building elements, interpreting their

lines, angles, reflections, silhouettes and shapes through the use of fine ink markmaking, collage and paint.

Naoimh O’ Shea is inspired by wildlife on the Isle of May and around the East of Scotland. Her recent landscapes range from fiery sunsets to rolling hills to stormy skies and spectacular beaches in the Outer Hebrides.

Maisie & Mac also has a wide range of prints, ceramics, textiles, paintings, metalwork, woodwork, glass and jewellery. maisieandmac.com

Naoimh O’Shea, Harris in the Snow

John Mackechnie RSA, Rent-a-Car

Annie Green

Flat Cat Gallery, Lauder Throughout May

Driven by a love of colour, featured artist Annie Green is an abstract landscape painter inspired by nature and the countryside around her in East Lothian. She says: “I am excited by wild open spaces, a big sky, the textures of fields and woods, the restless and unpredictable beauty of the sea and how the weather sweeps in and the light changes moment by moment.”

“My process of painting involves many layers of collage and acrylic paint, some translucent, some opaque. Sometimes previous layers are buried and scratched back into, so that the painting’s history reflects the layering and complexity of the land itself. Painting for me is not about recreating the reality of the landscape, but rather the remembered landscape and the experience of being in it.” flatcatgallery.co.uk

Reveal Glasgow SEC

May 19-21

Previously the Glasgow Contemporary Art Fair, along with a new name Reveal is moving from Kelvingrove Art Gallery to its new home at the SEC. The change brings improved facilities for visitors, including spacious exhibition and hospitality areas, a Champagne, wine, refreshment and food bar, extended wrapping facilities and plentiful car parking. There are also complimentary art classes on Saturday and Sunday led by Peter J. Scott of Glasgow School of Art. (Please note: Places are limited and must be booked in advance.)

Exhibitors include art galleries and professional and emerging artists from across the UK offering a wide range of original contemporary paintings, prints, glasswork, sculptures, drawings and digital art at prices ranging from £50 to over £20,000. All purchased work can be taken away on the day or delivery can be arranged. Tickets for the Friday Preview Evening, Saturday and Sunday are now on sale. revealglasgow.co.uk

Scottish Potters Association

Spring 2023 Exhibition

An Talla Solais, Ullapool

Until May 27

Over 50 artists respond to the theme Connections – Past, Present, Future with a variety of styles and techniques, showcasing the breadth, talent and diversity of ceramic art practiced by potters across Scotland and ranging from functional household objects to imaginative sculptural vessels. The show takes place in An Talla Solais’s brand new exhibition space. antallasolais.org

Nancy Chambers, Blushed by a Kiss (Linton 59)

Annie Green, In this fresh morning, mixed media on wood panel

Fresh Art@47, Pittenweem

Until May 14

This mixed media exhibition of paintings, ceramics and interior design features work by Kirsty Anderson, Margaret Hume, Lyndsey Lannie, Caroline McGonigal, Tablet & HAAR and Simon Ward. pittenweemartsfestival.co.uk

Ingrid Mayes: Cottages & Creels

Art & Craft Collective, Edinburgh

Until Jun 3

Working generally in acrylics and oils, for her first Edinburgh solo show the Fife artist reimagines scenes in her home village of Dalgety Bay. There is also still time to catch Natasha Mikhailova: Road to Blues (until May 6), the Ukrainian abstract painter’s first solo exhibition in the UK. artcraftcollective.co.uk

ArTay

Perth

May 18-21

Curated by Frames Gallery as part of the Perth Festival (May 18-27), ArTay is one of the largest exhibitions of contemporary art in Scotland. Displayed in a large marquee in the Perth Concert Hall plaza (where it stays open prior to evening performances) is a huge range of paintings, prints, sculptures, ceramics, woodwork, glass, metalwork and jewellery by both established and early career artists and craftmakers. perthfestival.co.uk/ event-ARTAY-Exhibition-id1414

Ingrid Mayes, I Saw the Crescent

Wall hanging by Tablet & HAAR

The Spring Show

Resipole Studios, Acharacle, Argyll

Until May 26

Resipole’s current show features new work by the gallery’s wide roster of artists, including wildlife and landscape paintings by Alan B. Hayman and Colin Woolf, abstract expressive works by Jane Rushton and Morag Young, small scale landscapes by Lisa Houston, figurative and still life paintings by Andrew Sinclair, ceramics by Helen Michie, seascapes by Jim Wright and wood-turning work by John Hodgson. resipolestudios.co.uk

High St. Gallery, Kirkcudbright

The High St. Gallery has a large collection of Georgian to mid-century retro art glass, pottery from the Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and mid-century periods and new paintings by James Macaulay, Davy Brown and Hazel Campbell. highstgallery.co.uk

Morag Young, Boathouse, Cuil Bay

Silver Modernist cuff set with faceted citrines

Spring Exhibition

Velvet Easel Gallery, Portobello

Until May 28

Velvet Easel is presenting work by over 50 artists, both gallery regulars and newcomers such as Sky Portrait Artist of the Year contestant KellyAnne Cairns. All media are represented, including figurative, landscape and abstract paintings of all sizes as well as prints, ceramics, glass, sculpture and jewellery. There is a wide range of price points and the gallery is a member of the Own Art scheme, which enables buyers to spread the cost of purchases. velveteasel.co.uk

James McNaught: Looking for Ariadne

Ronald F. Smith: Painting Colour

Roger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow

Until May 13

James McNaught paints in gouache and watercolour with a delicate touch and a faultless technique. His witty and enigmatic paintings have an obsessive quality, depicting a surreal, brooding, slightly threatening world, often unnervingly quiet and inhabited

sporadically by mysterious recurring figures. Most of Ronald F. Smith’s paintings in this small collection are based on observation and memory following a trip to Corfu. He says: “They are not scenic representations, but responses to places visited. It’s more about personal vision. Seeing the vivid colour and strong light of the Mediterranean/Ionian Sea is always stimulating and a dramatic contrast to the subdued light and colour of the west of Scotland.” billcliffegallery.com

Amelia McComb, Lilies

James McNaught, The Melancholia of Ariadne, gouache & watercolour

Canvas & Clay II Whitehouse Gallery, Kirkcudbright Until Jun 24

Following on from last year’s exhibition of the same name, this second offering of Canvas & Clay focuses solely on paintings and pottery, finding harmony between the two media.

Newcomers include: painter and ceramicist Ian McWhinnie, whose work features anonymous figures; Angelo Murphy, whose still lifes are a nod to the Baroque painters of the 17th century, but with a more contemporary twist; and Jan Munro, who combines colours, shapes and mark-making to create semi-representational works which look beyond reality. Returning artists include: Ben Brotherton and June Bell with striking new figurative paintings; Suzanne Stuart Davies, whose abstract paintings are interpretations of her surrounding landscapes; awardwinning children’s illustrator Catherine Rayner; and Ann Armstrong with a collection of Scottish landscapes. There are also new collections of ceramics by a range of potters. whitehousegallery.co.uk

Falu Studios, Dumfries

Ongoing

Artist and craftmaker respectively create original artworks, including acrylic landscapes and still lifes, mixed media art, unique ink and perspex designs, and wood and resin furniture, lamps and other works. They also offer a range of affordable prints and smaller, original pieces to bring a burst of colour to a small room or adorn limited wall space. falustudios.com

Tricia Barna & Andy Philpott

Andy Philpott, Art River table top, elm, transparent blue resin, Danish oil finish

Suzanne Stuart Davies, Wind Chill, oil on canvas

Decades: The Art of Change 1900-1980

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art/Modern Two Ongoing

This exploration of the modern art scene from 1900 to the 1970s offers an insight into how artists have captured changes in society, showing how the mood and atmosphere of the work reflects and embodies each changing decade.

Spread across six rooms of Modern Two, the selection begins with electrifyingly colourful works by French artists Henri Matisse and André Derain, whose landscapes were so radically different that they were given the derogatory label ‘Fauves’ (‘wild beasts’). The term stuck and Fauvism went on to have a major impact on British, particularly Scottish art.

Bookending the exhibition, the 1970s saw artists taking Abstraction and Minimalism to extremes, as typified by Fred Sandback’s Untitled (1971) – two coloured cords which cut across the corner of the room, questioning the very notion of art as something with three-dimensional form or narrative meaning. nationalgalleries.org

Nomads Tent, Edinburgh

This year celebrating its 40th anniversary, Nomads Tent is a veritable warehouse of tribal and village crafts sourced direct from Asia and North Africa. nomadstent.co.uk

Unwrapping Duane Hanson’s Tourists, 1970 © Estate of Duane Hanson. Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London 2022.

Photo: Neil Hanna

WASPS x Kirkcudbright Galleries Kirkcudbright Galleries

Until Jun 4

This exhibition, featuring works by 60 tenants of studios across the country, continues the Galleries’ partnership with Workshop and Artists Studio Provision Scotland (WASPS), which provides affordable studios for artists, makers and the creative industries. kirkcudbrightgalleries.org.uk waspsstudios.org.uk

Bryan Angus & Kitty Watt Gallery Heinzel, Aberdeen Until May 27

A skilled lino printmaker, Bryan Angus is particularly influenced by 20th century Scottish and English landscape artists and the illustration traditions which preceded them. Most of his work is inspired by the drama of his surroundings in northeast Scotland and the history of the people and their towns.

Kitty Watt lives with her husband, also an artist, in a remote croft in the Highlands of Scotland, where they lead ‘the good life’ farming and managing a smallholding. Her intricate etchings reflect her immersion in the natural world and the timeless beauty of the landscape.

There is also a selection of ceramics by Wenna Crockatt. galleryheinzel.com

Bryan Angus, Mohr Head, linoprint

Alison Price, Pushed

Gaia Mackintosh Church, Glasgow May 13-Jun 24

The Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society is about to mark the 50th anniversary of its foundation with a six-month programme of cultural events, the highlight of which is Luke Jerram’s awe-inspiring touring installation, Gaia

Named after the Greek goddess of Earth, Gaia is 2.1 million times smaller than the real Earth with each centimetre of the internally lit sculpture describing 21 kilometres of our planet’s surface. By standing 181 metres from the artwork, the public will be able to see the Earth as it appears from the moon. Measuring six metres in diameter and created from 120dpi NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface, the artwork provides the opportunity to see the Earth floating in three dimensions as it slowly revolves, accompanied by a specially composed soundwork by BAFTAwinning Dan Janes. Tickets: mackintosh. eventbrite.co.uk

Jenny McLaren & Anna de Ville: Fieldmarks Castle Gallery, Inverness Until May 27

Named after the distinctive stripes, spots, patterns, colours and highlights on birds which help with identification, Fieldmarks brings together two artists with a keen interest in bird-watching.

Jenny McLaren is interested in the way in which each bird species belongs to its individual habitat. Using maps to signify the locations in which they can be found, she skillfully captures the birds in acrylic, gouache, ink and coloured pencil.

Anna de Ville uses her silversmithing skills to craft

jewellery pieces which represent some iconic birds, focussing on the patterns found in their plumage. She oxidises parts of the silver to highlight her mark-making and uses semi-precious stones and touches of 18-carat gold to enhance her designs. castlegallery.co.uk

Gaia at London’s Natural History Museum

Jenny McLaren, Mull Corncrake, acrylic ink, acrylic paint & coloured pencil on geological map showing part of Mull

of the BEST

By Susan Mansfield

Keg de Souza: Shipping Roots Climate House (formerly Inverleith House), Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh

Until Aug 27

The legacies of colonialism are everywhere, even among plants. Keg de Souza, an artist of Goan heritage now based in Australia, tells some of these stories in a new body of work, having spent much of 2022 working with the archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens. British colonials were responsible for the movement of plants around the world, including that most Australian of trees, the eucalyptus, which now grows in many countries, sometimes displacing native species. Colonials also cultivated prickly pear all over the empire in an attempt to feed the insects which produced valuable cochineal dye. These stories and others are told in de Souza’s gentle, immersive installations. rbge.org.uk

Zineb Sedira: Can’t You See the Sea Changing? Dundee Contemporary Arts

Until Aug 6

Dreams Have No Titles, the work by French-Algerian artist Zineb Sedira for the French Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, was one of the most talked about shows of the festival. This exhibition, developed between DCA and the De La Warr Pavilion of Bexhill-on-Sea, is Sedira’s first show for 12 years in a UK public gallery. Central to it is her fascination with the sea, with allusions to stories of migration and exile, colonialism and climate crisis. Highlights include a series of previously unseen photographs, Sea Rocks (2011-2022), documenting the eroded rock formations at Cap Sigli Lighthouse in Algeria, and a recreation of part of her studio, which builds on the work she made for Venice. dca.org.uk

Photo: Thierry Bal

Photo: Neil Hanna

The Boys: An Adventure Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh Until Jun 10

The Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for many artists to engage in “lockdown projects”. In March 2020, artist David Austen and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Hisham Matar exchanged a drawing and a short piece of writing via WhatsApp, not knowing where the project might lead. In the following months they continued to exchange words and images. Now, the two distinct bodies of work which emerged – a novella and a suite of 73 gouache drawings – are being presented for the first time. Austen’s drawings do not illustrate Matar’s text (many of them are entirely abstract), but the two share a temperament and a sense of unfolding momentum. The words and pictures are published together in an artist’s book, which is available from the gallery. inglebygallery.com

George Wyllie: A Day Down A Goldmine Glasgow Print Studio May 5-27

George Wyllie’s surreal satire on banking now has a whiff of legend about it. It began life in 1982 at Glasgow’s Third Eye Centre as what Wyllie described as “a humorous sculpture with a deeply serious vein running through it” before being developed into a piece of absurdist theatre. Featuring actors such as Russell Hunter and Bill Paterson, it was staged at the Edinburgh Fringe and toured across Scotland. What is less well known is that Wyllie also produced a book featuring illustrations, texts and songs made as a series of prints at Aberdeen’s Peacock Printmakers. Now the prints, which were retained by Wyllie’s family, are being exhibited together for the first time in 30 years, with limited numbers available for sale. gpsart.co.uk

Dominique Cameron: Up with the Larks Fidra Fine Art, Gullane May 6-Jun 18

Painter Dominique Cameron’s “curation of quiet spaces” has taken her across the full breadth of Scotland from Peterhead, the most easterly point of the Scottish mainland, to Ardnamurchan Lighthouse, the most westerly. Starting early and often travelling long distances on foot, she drew and painted as she went, distilling her observations into larger, more abstract works in her Fife studio. This exhibition, which includes over a year’s work, shows her distinctive take on the Scottish landscape. Corrour Station, for example, inspired by the most remote part of Rannoch Moor, is not the painting you might expect, but rather a blast of oranges and pinks on a monumental scale. fidrafineart.co.uk

Kira Freije: River by Night

Cample Line, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire

Until Jun 10

If contemporary art is usually an urban phenomenon, Cample Line is building a reputation for challenging that by inviting artists to make work for a space in the midst of rural Dumfriesshire. London-based Kira Freije is the latest artist to be invited to the gallery, reconfiguring existing work and making new work to respond to the location. (The title refers to the river Cample, which flows right next to the gallery). A graduate of the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, Freije began by working with a blacksmith to learn metalwork techniques and often works with materials found in scrapyards as well as with blown glass. Her evocative pieces have been described as poetic assemblages, conveying fragments of narrative and a sense of time and place.

campleline.org.uk

Dominique Cameron in the studio with Corrour Station

Photo: Mike Bolam

Adam Ferguson first gained recognition for his work in 2009, when he embarked on a survey of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, working as a photojournalist on assignment for Time Magazine, The New York Times and National Geographic. In the years since he has worked internationally documenting the consequences of geopolitical conflicts on civilian populations.

These images are from his Silent Wind, Roaring Sky series. Named after a peculiar ambience in the vast, sparsely populated Australian interior, it emerged out of an interest in the overlapping effects of Australia’s difficult colonial history, the climate crisis, globalisation and the simple facts of life in the country’s rural expanse. adamfergusonstudio.com

PHOTO - SPREAD

Scottish Ensemble Erland Cooper: Folded Landscape (Scottish premiere) Edinburgh & Glasgow

May 15 & 16

Orkney-born composer Erland Cooper was named Nature’s Songwriter by The Guardian for his compositions describing the earth and its landscapes. His latest album, Folded Landscapes, pushes his practice even further. Developed and recorded in collaboration with the Scottish Ensemble, the album offers Cooper’s observations on climate change and his belief in finding solutions to complex and urgent problems. The concert features a full performance of the album paired with a programme of contemporary classical music.

scottishensemble.co.uk

Scottish Chamber Orchestra Edinburgh & Glasgow

May 11-12

The orchestra is joined by the SCO Chorus for Brahms’ A German Requiem, bringing the 2022/23 season to a contemplative close. An agnostic himself, Brahms wrote his requiem as a humanist message of hope and comfort for those mourning lost loved ones in one of his most personal works, possibly inspired by his mother’s death. The work premiered in Bremen Cathedral on Good Friday in 1868 with Brahms himself conducting. sco.org.uk

Royal Scottish National Orchestra: Out of This World!

Edinburgh & Glasgow

May 19 & 20

The RSNO continues its season with a musical tribute to space age Hollywood blockbusters, from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America, Thor and Ant-Man to selections from Star Trek and Star Wars

Next up is an All-Star Gala featuring superstar soloists Nicola Benedetti, Sheku KannehMason and Benjamin Grosvenor performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano after which Music Director Thomas Søndergård closes the evening with Brahms’ dramatic First Symphony (Edinburgh & Glasgow, May 26 & 27). rsno.org.uk

Bremen Cathedral hosted the premiere of Brahms’ A German Requiem

Nicola Benedetti

Folded Landscapes will be released May 5.

The Stamping Ground Scottish tour

Until Jun 24

Built around the music of Scottish folk-rock band Runrig (and in the year of their 50th anniversary), this uplifting new musical features Euan and Annie, who return home for a ‘fresh start’ for their teenage daughter. But a heatwave in the Highlands finds them lost in this once familiar place now filled with more tourists than residents.

The heart of their community, the local pub, is for sale and tensions are rising about the future of this place they call home. As relationships ignite and smoulder, Euan and Annie find themselves swept into a battle to save the heart of the community. But can they save each other? (Winner, Best Music and Sound, 2022 CATS Awards) rawmaterialarts.com

Photo: Ewen Weatherspoon

Sketches Scottish Tour

May 18-Jun 30

In this piece by choreographer Kate Armstrong, four dancers perform alongside DJ and composer Mariam Rezaei and a string quintet in a quirky production merging movement, classical strings and electronic sound.

In a series of three short movement vignettes set to and inspired by Bach’s Violin Concerto in A Minor, dancers meet in an intricate, physical, whirlwind conversation exploring the polyphonic nature of the composer’s work. In each community visited on the tour, the company will also capture excerpts from the live show on film at iconic local landmarks. Free screenings of these short films will be held at the tour venues and in community spaces as well as being available to watch for free online. katiearmstrong.co.uk

Abigail’s Party Perth Theatre

May 9-13

Premiered at Hampstead Theatre in London in 1977, Mike Leigh’s ferocious black comedy was a landmark of 20th century British theatre. In her suburban living room, Beverly prepares for the arrival of her guests. She and husband

Laurence will host a drinks party for neighbours Angela, Tony and Sue. (Abigail herself is never seen. She is Susan’s 15-year-old daughter, who is holding her first teenager party next door.) As the alcohol flows and inhibitions are relaxed, fireworks begin. Leigh’s ruthlessly funny examination of 1970s British life skewers the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class which emerged in that decade. perththeatreandconcerthall.com

Anna Karenina

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

May 13-Jun 3

Playwright Lesley Hart’s bold, contemporary adaptation of Tolstoy’s masterpiece brings the heart-breaking story of relationships, marriage and betrayal bang up to date. Anna is visiting her brother to help save his marriage, but on her arrival at the station a charged encounter with a dazzling young cavalry officer sets her on a course of action which could destroy her own marriage. lyceum.org.uk

ON THE COVER

Dear Billy: A Love Letter to the Big Yin From the People of Scotland

Scottish tour

May 16-Jun 24

From the shipyards of Clydeside to his extraordinary stage and movie exploits, Billy Connolly is woven into Scottish culture. In Dear Billy, a team of story-gatherers has created a collection of moving and hilarious tales celebrating what the trail-blazing comedian means to us. Announced last year to mark Connolly’s 80th birthday year, this unique touring production written by Gary McNair will visit local theatres, art venues and community centres the length and breadth of Scotland, evolving on the road as it collects more stories from audience members to be woven into the show.

nationaltheatrescotland.com

Lindsey Campbell as Anna Karenina

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Gary McNair

Photo: Tommy Ga Ken Wan

Lest we forget

THREE YEARS AFTER we all learned what “lockdown” meant, much has returned to normal. Art galleries, theatres and concert halls are back in business, a bottle of hand sanitiser often the only clue to recent events.

Although the pandemic changed everyone’s lives for a time, few creatives are queueing up to explore the experience. And who could blame them? In the arts, as in other spheres, the focus is on moving forward.

But that is not the whole story. For those who lost loved ones or suffered long-term damage to their health, forgetting is impossible. The effects on NHS waiting lists will be felt for years to come and some businesses are still struggling to recover. The experience of lockdown still weighs heavily for many who want their stories to be heard. One of the few spaces where that can happen is art.

Artist and poet Alec Finlay has just completed the final phase of the multi-faceted project I

Alec Finlay in Pollok Park

In a world which would rather forget the Covid-19 pandemic, artists are playing an important part in creating spaces to remember.

Susan Mansfield spoke to three of them.

Remember: Scotland’s Covid Memorial. People gathered at the Memorial Walk in Glasgow’s Pollok Park for a minute’s silence on March 23, the third anniversary of the first national lockdown. The project was commissioned by a partnership which included Greenspace Scotland and The Herald newspaper, which led a public fundraising campaign to meet the £250,000 budget.

Finlay, who himself suffers from long Covid, is a defiant voice on the subject of remembering. He says: “As much as some may want to push these events to the side, they’re not over. Two million people in the UK have long Covid. Some people are still shielding. Bereaved families are still grieving, and their grief is heightened by what feels like a lack of respect from politicians. The pressure to move on is part of that. This becomes a very political work simply by telling the truth.”

The Memorial Walk features 40 trees with wooden “supports”, sculptures inspired by human gestures of support, some of them modelled by the bereaved and those with long Covid. Each tree bears the words “I remember”

Covid Memorial

in one of the many languages spoken in Scotland, and QR codes enable walkers to listen to some of the memories submitted to the project, read by actor Robert Carlyle.

Hundreds of Covid memories, single sentences beginning with the words “I remember”, were collected from people of all ages and backgrounds, creating what might be the first social history of the pandemic. Some were recorded by Carlyle, others printed in a book. All have been stored electronically on the project website and at the National Library of Scotland. Submissions are still being accepted.

Finlay says: “I had worked on other projects relating to health, like the organ donor memorial, but this was on a different scale. I needed to find a way of working which was appropriate to that, which I did by integrating different art forms. Rather than making a single centrepiece, the idea from day one was to use the whole landscape, to make something very large out of some things which were very modest.”

“I said very early on, it has to be not just for

I Remember – Scotland’s

“

I said very early on, it has to be not just for the bereaved, but for everyone affected

Photo: Hannah Laycock

the bereaved, but for everyone affected, including those grieving their health. One in eight people who had Covid has long Covid, and that’s not talked about. We’ve just had a leadership election in Scotland where Covid wasn’t talked about except as a historical event, which Sturgeon handled well. There is not a single long Covid clinic in Scotland. The lack of provision is a political story. I was excited to get the commission because I wanted to show people who had become disabled that we could still achieve things.”

Another group of people for whom forgetting is not an option are the NHS workers who were in the pandemic front line. In the summer of 2020, sculptor Kenny Hunter was commissioned to create a large scale work celebrating healthcare workers for the courtyard of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. Your Next Breath, described as ‘a memorial to mark the containment of Covid-19 and the resilience of healthcare workers’, was unveiled last autumn and has been nominated for the Marsh Award

for Excellence in Visual Arts Engagement .

The sculpture is composed of four socially distanced figures at ground level, representing NHS workers at the end of a shift removing their masks and PPE. Hunter drew on interviews he conducted during the pandemic with surgeons working in intensive care units.

He explains: “The words that came up again and again were ‘reflection’, ‘resilience’, ‘exhaustion’ and ‘compassion’. That’s what I wanted to try to convey. Hopefully, each figure has got a bit of each of them. I wanted their humanity to be tangible. They’re all dressed in scrubs, so they could be surgeons, anaesthetists, junior doctors or auxiliary nurses. I didn’t want there to be individual roles or hierarchy.”

Hunter compared the context of the work to the war memorials of the last century. He continues: “Society tends to build monuments to people who gave their lives, and in a way this was a similar human experience. There was a

time when people didn’t understand what the virus was, how it spread. Their job was to walk into rooms with people with this disease, and a lot of them did get ill. It seems a tame beast now, but at the time it was a really scary situation.”

“A lot of people did their lockdown projects, built a shed, did their garden, had quite a nice war, but for other people it was hell on earth. People don’t want to think about it, and for most that’s okay, but it’s different for the people who gave so much. They went into the burning building and we went out the other way.”

Claudia Zeiske, former director of the community arts organisation Deveron Projects in Huntly and now a freelance curator and producer, spent the summer of 2022 collecting Covid experiences of ordinary people in Aberdeenshire. Funded by the Scottish Government via Greenspace Scotland, she devised Mountain to Sea, a 250-kilometre walk, meeting groups and individuals in each

From Claudia Zeiske’s Mountain to Sea

town and village she visited.

With the aim of ‘walking the strapline of Aberdeenshire’ (the phrase used to promote the area to visitors), she started at Ben Macdui in the Cairngorms, following a meandering route to the coastal towns of Peterhead and Fraserburgh, and sat with people around her pink tablecloth embroidered with participants’ names (a tradition from her German family). Zeiske says: “By the time I arrived in Peterhead, I felt like I had walked the British class system.”

Her blog and film record a spectrum of experiences, from people who took up new hobbies and enjoyed walking and cycling in their local area to harrowing experiences of grief and hardship. In the coastal towns, many workers at fish factories on zero hours contracts were laid off with no access to furlough and had to rely on food banks to survive.

In Peterhead Prison, Zeiske heard from inmates about being locked in their cells 24/7 for ten

Kenny Hunter, Your Next Breath

Claudia Zeiske with her pink tablecloth

days if one person on their unit tested positive. She also met overseas workers on trawlers who became stranded in Scotland with no paperwork to come ashore, while she described the “electric” atmosphere in one sheltered housing complex where “anger, frustration and sadness” were still palpable. She says: “The people who are most affected are the elderly and the really young. I think the mental health pandemic will be longer and bigger than Covid.”

What she found everywhere was a hunger to share experiences. Some people talked for hours, and in one town people actually queued up to talk to her. She says: “Some things are so strange in life you almost can’t tell their stories later on, you have to do it at the time.

If you don’t write these stories down, they will get lost somehow. If you don’t capture these stories, who will remember?” •

For more information about I Remember: Scotland’s Covid Memorial visit iremember.scot

For more information on Claudia Zeiske’s Mountain to Sea project visit claudiazeiske.com

I Remember – Scotland’s Covid Memorial

Hand-made

All the featured makers are selected from the directory of Craft Scotland, the national development agency for contemporary craft and the ‘go to’ destination for anyone looking for beautiful, hand-made objects and who are passionate about supporting Scottish craftmakers. craftscotland.org/craft-directory

Jewellery designer Kate Trouw uses surprising materials to create playful, easy to wear pieces. Inspired by the location of her studio on a cliff overlooking the Firth of Forth, she draws inspiration from the colours and materials on her doorstep. katetrouw.com

Ceramicist Robert Hunter creates decorative and functional pieces exploring the theme of time and place. Using naturally sourced materials to develop surface details and glazes, giving an earthiness to his work, his small batch approach ensures that no two pieces are never the same. hunterceramics.co.uk

Artist and stone-carver Michele de Bruin creates commissions and her own sculptures exploring a reinvented world, altered through different cultural perceptions and narratives. Her work includes memorials, hand-cut headstones, lettering, commemorative plaques, heraldry, sculpture and carvings for restoration projects. artist.org.uk

Ceramic artist Katie Rose Johnston of Manifesto hand-builds unconventional objects often evocative of curiosity cabinets and museum displays. Her environmentally sustainable practice leads her to experiment with natural and waste materials, finding inspiration in their unpredictability. studiomanifesto.co.uk

Shetland-based BAKKA produces small batches of luxurious, knitted textiles for garments and homeware. They sustain the islands’ rich heritage by giving the oldest Fair Isle patterns and colours a contemporary twist with their innovative reversible fabric. bakkaknitwear.com

Flip the Script Furniture is a woodworking and design studio which produces everyday items from furniture to home accessories in natural materials, combining innovation, technical expertise and a passion for experimentation with minimalism and timeless aesthetics.

flipthescriptfurniture.com

STANDING

TALL T

HE CAPITAL AND LARGEST CITY of the Swiss French-speaking canton of Vaud, Lausanne tumbles down an incline from its lofty cathedral to the shores of Lake Geneva. Luckily, the metro – the only one in Switzerland, making it the smallest city in the world with a rapid transit system – takes passengers up the gradient.

The centre of the city is cleaved by a gorge formed by an ancient river, the Fion, which has been covered over since the 19th century. Several bridges cross the depression to connect the adjacent neighbourhoods.

The old town of Lausanne has loads of atmosphere with cobble-stoned, pedestrianised streets, charming squares and handsome buildings. A roofed wooden staircase, the Escaliers du Marché, has been getting locals between the upper and lower parts of the city for centuries.

Over the years Lausanne has attracted its fair share of cultural luminaries. The English painter J. M. W. Turner visited repeatedly to popularise the romantic sweeps of its Alpine scenery. The English Romantic poets Shelley and Byron

By Ian Sclater

visited. Byron’s stay in the Hotel Angleterre et Residence is memorialised with a plaque on the entrance wall (he wrote The Prisoner of Chillon there), while another plaque-worthy resident was Georges Simenon, creator of the French police detective Maigret.

Other visiting celebs have included French fashion designer Coco Chanel, who stayed at the Lausanne Palace hotel to escape the disapproval of the French public after having a war-time affair with a German officer, David Bowie, who married the model Iman in the City Hall, and T. S. Elliot, who composed most of his 1922 poem The Waste Land there.

Today Lausanne has much to offer the visiting art-lover. Top of the list is a new museum hub, Plateforme 10, which has emerged where once stood a giant engine shed, with three of the city’s most important art institutions sharing the site in striking new purpose-built spaces.

So called because it is next to the town’s Art Deco-era railway station, which has nine platforms, Platforme 10 has combined Lausanne’s fine arts, photography and design museums on a single site, a one of a kind project in Switzerland which brings them together on a sprawling esplanade which

also includes restaurants, a cafe and a row of arcades housing creative businesses. It is the beginning of a planned new district with culture as a focus. plateforme10.ch/en

The first tenant of Platforme 10 was the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, known by the French acronym MCBA (Musee Cantonal des Beaux-Arts). The design won the Spanish company Studio Barozzi Veiga the Grand National Prize of Architecture. The brick building echoes the locomotive depot formerly on the site, while the minimalist interior is designed to highlight the art.

A common thread throughout the 13 rooms, with each one dedicated to a particular theme or era, is to showcase works by artists from the canton of Vaud and French-speaking Switzerland generally and to compare and contrast them with international art trends.

Vaud painters Charles Gleyre (whose students at his Paris studio included Monet, Renoir and Sisley) and Felix Vallotton (the museum is home to his foundation and its 10,000-piece collection, the largest public body of his work in the world) are joined by compatriots such as Louis Ducros, Theophile Steinlen and Louis Soutter. Their combined works make up a large part of the museum’s collection.

High hopes for Lausanne’s new art hub

Giuseppe Penone’s 15-metre high bronze sculpture Luce e ombra (Light and shadow) dominates the entrance hall of the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts.

Selections from the permanent collection, which spans the second half of the 18th century to the present day, change regularly and at any time may include works by Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Renoir, Vuillard, Bonnard, Rodin, Soulages or Giacometti. There is a higher proportion of women artists than is normally found in a major art museum. mcba.ch

Two more museums share a neighbouring building. The Photo Elysee Museum for Photography is entirely dedicated to photographic art, with several large scale exhibitions a year. Its collections of over a million phototypes cover the entire spectrum of the medium, from the earliest processes of the 1840s to today’s digital images.

Made by both well known professional photographers and little known amateur photographers, the images include travel photography, family portraits, artistic work, documentary projects, photojournalism and studio work. elysee.ch/en

Upstairs in the sleek building, the Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts (known by its French acronym, MUDAC) is the only institution in French-speaking Switzerland entirely dedicated to design in all its facets, from graphics, fashion, ceramics, textiles and jewellery to multimedia, furniture, lighting, utensils and glass art (one of Europe’s most important collections). mudac.ch

The Hermitage Foundation has a lovely location in an 1850s mansion set in a wooded hillside estate with an English-style garden overlooking the city and Lake Geneva with the Alps for a backdrop.

Built in the 1840s by a Lausanne banker, the residence is notable for its openness to the surroundings, a new idea in architecture at that time. The large windows let in lots of light and seem to bring the outside in, while wide loggias on either side of the building make the most of the panorama.

Now owned by the City of Lausanne, the house shows a selection of works from a collection which includes works by Signac, Vallotton, Sisley, Marquet and lesser known Impressionists.

Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, known by the French acronym MCBA (Musee Cantonal des Beaux-Arts)

The Photo Elysee Museum for photography is entirely dedicated to photographic art.

Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, known by the French acronym MCBA (Musee Cantonal des Beaux-Arts)

This sleek building is home to the Photo Elysee Museum for Photography and the Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts.

It also hosts two to three special exhibitions a year devoted mainly to western art dating from the Renaissance to the present day. The shows have one of three focuses: monographs (Degas, Gauguin, etc.), themed exhibitions (Art and Cinema, Canada and Impressionism, etc.) and important public or private collections. There is also an extensive collection of Chinese porcelain. fondation-hermitage.ch

Originally based on a legacy of 5,000 works from the French artist Jean Dubuffet, the Art Brut Collection is unique in the world. Dubuffet was fascinated by ‘authentic’ art made outside the mainstream art world, hence the terms ‘outsider art’ or ‘art brut’ (raw art).

Now grown to over 70,000 pieces, the collection features works by self-taught artists, many of whom have been affected by mental illness and have undergone lengthy terms in asylums, while others have led covert existences. These artists may find art to be therapeutic, perhaps their only means of expressing themselves. artbrut.ch

Light streams into the Fondation de l’Hermitage overlooking Lake Geneva.

This 1840s villa is a home to the Fondation de l’Hermitage.

Kanako Tayu, Untitled, colour crayon on paper (Art Brut Collection)

Lausanne also has a lively programme of art in public spaces called Art en Ville (Art in the City), which sites over 80 works in streets, squares and parks. A guide is available outlining routes ranging from two to five kilometres in length.

lausanne.ch/portrait/ culture/art-en-ville

FURTHER INFO The Swiss Travel Pass offers unlimited travel on consecutive days throughout the national rail, bus and boat network, including free rail journey from Swiss airport to destination. It also includes the Swiss Museum Pass, which allows free entrance to 500 museums and exhibitions. mystsnet.com/en

For info on Lausanne: lausanne-tourisme.ch/en

For info on Switzerland: myswitzerland.com

David White contributed to this article.

Sylvia Krenz and Rene Schmid, Eau de vie, on Place de la Riponne

Samuel Mathiss, Fractopierre, at Placette Andrew-Bonnard

Damien Cothereau and Giordano Favi, N, at Place Chauderon

Peter Welz, Studies for a movement, photography on plexigas, at the Riponne–Maurice Bejart metro station

Vincent Kohler, Unplugged, bronze, at Esplanade du Flon

Alice Neel:

Hot Off The Griddle var. contributors pub. Prestel

Accompanying the largest UK show of the artist’s work to date, at London’s Barbican (until May 21), the book includes over 70 of Neel’s most vibrant portraits, capturing the shifting social and political context of America in the 20th century. Alice Neel (1900–1984) worked in New York at a time when figurative painting was deeply unfashionable. Her canvases celebrate those who were often marginalised in society such as labour leaders, black and Puerto Rican children, pregnant women, Greenwich Village eccentrics, civil rights activists and queer performers. In recent years, her work has given her cult status among a younger generation of artists.

Contemporary Art

by Natalie Rudd

pub. Thames & Hudson

Part of the excellent Art Essentials series, this plainspeaking, jargon-free account provides a clear understanding of the contexts in which art is being made today. The contemporary art world can appear baffling to the casual observer, with huge sums of money paid for works which owe little, if anything, to art as we know it. Since the 1960s contemporary art has overturned accepted historical categorisations. This guide brings the subject up to date, exploring what constitutes ‘contemporary’, how the term came about and what it means today

Divining the Human: The Art of Alexander Newley pub. Unicorn

Spanning the worlds of portraiture, landscape, the nude, abstraction and still life, the British contemporary artist Alexander Newley fuses fine art traditions of observation and draughtsmanship with the transcendental intuitions of the mystic. He says: “For me art is a moral activity, a straining after the highest virtue of beauty and enlarged consciousness. As such, all art is essentially religious, even when it shows us the ugliness of a fallen world.” Newley accompanies the images with personal reminiscences, resulting in an intriguing personal account of an artist’s journey.

Capturing Nature: 150 Years of Nature Printing

by Matthew Zucker & Pia Östlund

pub. Princeton Architectural Press

This gorgeous landmark visual exploration of nature printing features dozens of different techniques and hundreds of rare images. Hailed as the earliest precursor to photography, nature printing is the practice of using impressions from the surface of a natural object such as leaves, flowering plants, ferns, seaweed and even snakes to produce an image. Co-author Matthew Zucker has spent decades curating the most extensive collection of nature prints ever assembled and this volume presents them side by side in a visually stunning overview of printing methods over 150 years.

Shadows and Light: The Extraordinary Life of James McBey

by Alasdair Soussi

pub. Scotland Street Press

This new biography sheds light on the Aberdeenshire-born artist who, after serving as the official war artist to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in WWI (his portrait of T. E. Lawrence is in the Imperial War Museum collection) and enjoying commercial success between the two world wars, retreated to north Africa and relative obscurity. Never a joiner of the art establishment, McBey (1883-1959) led an adventurous, almost cinematic life, in the process gaining a reputation artistically as something of a modern Rembrandt, most esteemed for the now unfashionable art of etching. An exhibition of his work continues at the Aberdeen Art Gallery until May 28.

Painting Women Writers by Susanne du Toit pub. Eiderdown Books

Susanne du Toit has devoted herself to an ongoing project painting women writers and art historians. Inspired by her encounter with the writer Jeanette Winterson, whose portrait was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in London for their collection, du Toit undertook a series of portraits presented in this book, which includes nineteen eminent writers such as Dolly Alderton, Clover Stroud, Dreda Say Mitchell, Diana Evans and Rosie Boycott. As well as the artworks themselves, the book includes preliminary sketches and notes from the artist on her process and personal contributions from the writers on the experience of being a sitter.

Studio Ceramics by Alun Graves pub. Thames & Hudson/V&A

This magnificent catalogue of the V&A’s collection of 20th century and contemporary British ceramics by makers such as Rachel Kneebone, Grayson Perry and Edmund de Waal places them in a broader international group of artists experimenting with clay and considers the medium in dialogue with other art forms and with culture at large. It traces modern methods back to East Asia, Africa, the ancient Mediterranean and the Middle East, showing how these influences continue to inspire contemporary makers and demonstrating how recent experimentation has led to the reinvention of ceramics as a radical and contemporary art practice.

Roger Bamber: Out of the Ordinary pub. Unicorn

For 50 years one of Britain’s leading photojournalists, Roger Bamber has poured his life’s work into this reflection of a career which encompassed everything from riots and bombings to the crazy world of rock and pop as well as capturing with a sympathetic eye the demise of traditional British industries and steam trains. He was happiest finding creative people with a story to tell and preferred working outdoors, ideally within sight of the sea and finding the extraordinary in ordinary people. He was British Press Photographer of the Year, British News Photographer of the Year (twice) and won many awards for his features on the arts.

For a chance to win a copy of the book, go to page 32.

Anatomy OF A PAINTING

Johannes Vermeer, Girl With A Pearl Earring, c.1665, Mauritshuis, The Hague

Just as visitors to the Louvre in Paris flock to see da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, it is to “the Girl” in The Hague’s Mauritshuis that most art-lovers make a beeline.

One of the most famous paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, Vermeer’s most enduring work has gone by various names over the centuries, but, surprisingly, only recently became known by its present title.

Originally it may have been one of the two ‘tronics’ (the Dutch 17th century description of a ‘head’ which was not meant to be a portrait) ‘painted in the Turkish fashion’, as recorded in the inventory at the time of Vermeer’s death. It may later have been the work appearing in the catalogue to a 1696 sale of paintings in Amsterdam, in which it was described as a ‘Portrait in Antique Costume, uncommonly artistic’.

After being acquired by the Mauritshuis in 1902 as part of a bequest, the painting became known as Girl with a Turban, a hat which had become a fashion accessory during the period of European wars against the Turks. The girl’s exotic dress supported the choice of title.

By 1995 Girl with a Pearl was considered a more appropriate title. Pearls, in fact, figure in 21 of Vermeer’s pictures, and shaped ear-pieces were used as persuasive accessories in 20th century fakes which were briefly attributed to Vermeer. The Dutch astrophysicist Vincent Icke raised doubts about the material of the earring and argued that it looks more like polished tin on the grounds of the specular (mirror-like)

reflection, the pear shape and its large size.

The painting’s popularity began to rise between the 1960s and 1990s, when it was twice exhibited in Vermeer shows at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. In 2012, as part of a travelling exhibition while the Mauritshuis was being renovated and expanded, it was exhibited in Japan, Italy and again in the United States. As a result of this worldwide exposure, Girl with a Pearl Earring has become one of the most recognisable paintings in all of art. It was selected by the Dutch public as the most beautiful painting in the Netherlands.

The most recent restoration of the painting in 1994 enhanced the subtle colour scheme and the intimacy of the girl’s gaze toward the viewer and in 2018 an international team of art experts studied the painting using microscopes, X-ray equipment and a special scanner to learn more about the methods and materials used by Vermeer.

The project revealed many details, including the presence of delicate eyelashes, a green curtain behind the head, changes the artist had made and details of the pigments used and where they came from. The pearl was described as an illusion due to having ‘no contour and also no hook to hang it from the girl’s ear’.

The painting has been the subject of at least one cinematic treatment, while contemporary artists have reinterpreted it. Actress Scarlett Johansson’s uncanny resemblance to Vermeer’s girl saw her play the leading role in director Peter Webber’s 2003 film, which portrayed

her as a maid working in the artist’s house, becoming his assistant and the model for the famous work.

Ethiopian-American artist Awol Erizku recreated it as a print in Girl with a Bamboo Earring, featuring a young black woman and replacing the pearl earring with one made of bamboo as a commentary on the lack of black figures in museums and galleries, while in 2014 the English street artist Banksy reproduced the painting as a mural in Bristol, incorporating an alarm box in place of the pearl earring and calling it Girl with a Pierced Eardrum

While the painting was on loan to the Rijksmuseum for their blockbuster exhibition (she is now back home), her fans were invited to submit their own interpretations for display in a digital frame in the spot vacated by the original. The project, entitled My Girl with a Pearl, triggered almost 3,500 “Girls” from all over the world depicted in paint, pencil, wool, clay, wood, fabric, flower petals, buttons, ceramics, vegetables, fruits, shells, glass beads, balloons and Lego bricks. 170 works were selected and can still be seen online. mauritshuis.nl/en/ what-s-on/exhibitions/installation-mygirl-with-a-pearl

Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition continues at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam until June 4. rijksmuseum.nl

Lucy curated Alberta Whittle: create dangerously, which is at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One) until 7 Jan 2024.

When did you fall in love with art?

I was always intrigued by visual imagery. When I was a child, my grandparents had a reproduction of Constable’s The Haywain, and my mother had a print of a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger. When I was a teenager I started going to galleries and museums. A really memorable moment for me was seeing Gwen John’s Portrait of a Girl in Grey. It’s an unassuming, quiet picture, but there is such intensity in the girl. I was intrigued by the enigmatic qualities.

At what point did you realise you wanted to be a curator?

When I was a student I saved all my pennies and went to stay with a friend in New York. It was so exciting going to the big museums for the first time, I thought I would love to work in a museum. But it felt like it was out of my grasp, it was something other people did. When I graduated, I got a job in banking.

What changed?

My mum died when I was in my early twenties, which was a catalyst for rethinking my career. I felt I had to take chances and risks. I wrote to every visual art organisation I could think of and got a couple of invigilator jobs, then I worked in the shop at the Dean Gallery (now Modern Two). While I was there an opportunity came up to do some voluntary work in the curatorial department, which led to me getting a secretarial job in that department.

How did you get your present role?

I did a second degree in London at the Courtauld Institute and then worked at Tate Modern. I was the first curator of the Artists Room collection, which is jointly owned by NGS and Tate, and came back to Scotland to be a senior curator at NGS in 2011. I was made Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2019.

What’s a normal day like?

No two days are alike! Since the pandemic, I work from home two days a week, so when

I’m in the gallery I use the time to see people and have meetings. At home, I do reading, writing and research, looking at budgets.

What are the best parts of the job - and the worst?

There are so many things I love about my job. Nothing is as special as seeing audiences coming in and engaging with a show you’ve worked on. I never get tired of that. People do sometimes forget how much admin a curator has to do. I don’t mind it, but I like there to be a balance between creative bits of the job and the necessary admin parts.

How do you decide which shows to put on?

You have a long list and you have to edit down! I’m always thinking about the context, the strategy of the organisation, the big picture. I work with contemporary art, so I’m asking: what are the ways in which contemporary art helps us to understand the times in which we live? There are always practical considerations: scheduling, budget, fundraising.

What is it like to work with an artist to create a show of their work?

I see my role very much as a mediator. I want to make sure the artist’s vision and voice are centre stage, but I’m also an advocate for the needs of the visitor. Sometimes artists will come with a really strong vision of what they want and we can realise that. Sometimes there are practical issues to talk through. There’s a gentle, collaborative negotiation and navigation. Working with Alberta Whittle on create dangerously was a wonderful process of collaboration, it felt very organic.

How did the pandemic change the art world?

It precipitated a lot of deep thinking. There was such a reckoning in the museum sector after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. That was a really significant moment for us as curators examining the work we do, the role of institutions. We were already working across the organisation thinking about equality, diversity, inclusion, and we undertook external consultation to strengthen that commitment.

Lucy Askew

Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland

What are you most proud of?

Alberta Whittle’s Lagarey – The Last Born (made for the Venice Biennale in 2022) is such a profound film. It’s a reminder that art can talk about difficult subjects in ways that help us understand. It looks at a history that I was never taught, about Scotland’s role in colonial enslavement and the connections between our country and the Caribbean. I’m so glad we are able to show it to Scottish audiences.

Has a work of art ever changed your life?

I remember standing in front of a Barnett Newman painting and feeling completely physically overwhelmed by the scale, colour and presence. It made me realise that, while reproductions are useful, it’s important to see art in person.

If you could have a work of art from any art collection anywhere in the world…

Louise Bourgeois addresses the inner world, what it is to be a human being, in amazing ways. Working on her show at NGS in 2013 was a highlight of my career. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has her early personnages, standing totemic forms which I

find really beautiful and moving. There’s one in particular called Quarantania I which I’d love to have.

Who, or what, inspires you?

I’m lucky to be in a job where I’m constantly encountering art that is inspiring and people who are inspiring. But, on a personal basis, my mum. Her presence in my life continues to be really important. She keeps me going, makes

me want to do better every day.

What are you excited about?

The festivals in Edinburgh in August! NGS is collaborating with Edinburgh Art Festival to stage an off-site performance by Alberta Whittle. It’s an opportunity for us to see another aspect of Alberta’s practice – I can’t wait.

Alberta Whittle and Lucy Askew in Alberta’s exhibition, create dangerously

Photo: Matthew A Williams

Entanglement is more than blood by Alberta Whittle in create cangerously at Modern One