Newsletter No 53 Winter 2016-17 From the Chair artist talks, and a breakout session for speakers On behalf of the SSAH committee, I would and delegates. The second day of the symposium like to extend our best wishes to all of our will feature a selection of papers, which will be members for 2017. The year has already got off to presented at the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, an exciting start. I am delighted to report on our Scottish National Gallery, on Saturday 4 February. activities at the end of 2016 and share some of our A number of these papers will be published in the plans for the rest of 2017. 2017-18 volume of the SSAH Journal. We hope that Since the last edition of the newsletter, we you are able to join us! You can find further details, have hosted a number of events in a variety of including programmes and booking information at locations. In September, our members enjoyed https://ssahistory.wordpress.com/study/. tours of the new Art and Design Galleries at In addition to our symposium plans, future National Museums Scotland. This was followed in events for 2017 include a talk by Pat Clark on the October by a tour of the National Trust for artist Charles Mackie, which will take place after Scotland’s Kellie Castle by the Curator, Antonia our Annual General Meeting in the A.K. Bell room Laurence-Allen. The end of 2016 saw the launch of in the National Portrait Gallery on 11 February. We the latest edition of our journal at the Edinburgh are also hosting a visit to the National Records of City Art Centre in December. The journal launch Scotland and exhibition tours at the Talbot Rice was accompanied by a short presentation from Gallery, University of Edinburgh and Scottish Gordon Brennan, University of Edinburgh, on the National Gallery of Modern Art. We look forward acquisition of ceramics by the artist Emma Gillies. to seeing you there! We are extremely grateful to everyone who helped On behalf of the committee, I would like to to make these events possible. thank you for your continuing support and As you may be aware, the SSAH is hosting a enthusiasm for the SSAH. If you would like to share two-day symposium on the theme of Printmaking any ideas or news with the society, please do in Scotland in collaboration with Edinburgh contact me on [email protected]. Printmakers, National Galleries of Scotland and the University of St Andrews. The symposium will Claire Robinson commence with an event at Edinburgh Printmakers on Friday 3 February. It will include presentations, studio tours, practical printmaking demonstrations, 1 SSAH Research Support Grants curators who worked on them. As well as pointing out some of the key objects of interest, the curators also revealed a fascinating insight into the The Scottish Society for Art History promotes challenges of creating the new spaces. scholarship in the history of Scottish art and art Godfrey Evans (no stranger to regular located in Scotland. To facilitate this, the SSAH readers of the SSAH Journal) started us off in the offers research support grants from £50 to £500 to Art of Living gallery, which covers the period from assist with research costs and travel expenses. the middle ages to the mid-19th century. Godfrey Applicants must be working at a post-graduate reminded us what this particular room was like level or above and should either be resident in before – dark and atmospheric, and one of the Scotland or doing research that necessitates travel quietest spots in the museum since only 10% of to Scotland. Application deadline: 30 November. visitors ever managed to find it! Adding an escalator into the space and removing the doors to To apply for a research grant please send via the mezzanine floor have made it far more e-mail: accessible, but also added a conservation challenge due to the huge amount of light now flooding into a cover letter the first third of the gallery. This problem has been current curriculum vitae deftly solved by concentrating on ceramics in this a brief project description (300-500 words) lighter section. Another ingenious design solution specifying how the grant will be used and how is the introduction of large impressive objects mid- it relates to a broader research agenda way down, breaking up the long wall spaces and a budget (via the 16th-century table carpet from Glamis the name and e-mail address of one reference Castle) adding some welcome colour to counteract the predominance of gold and silver found in the Further information can be found on the SSAH surrounding cases. The latter does, however, website: include some exceptional pieces, much of it once https://ssahistory.wordpress.com/grants/. owned by the Dukes of Hamilton – such as the exquisite Tazza made from 38 ounces of solid gold Applications should be sent electronically to and later acquired by the Rothschilds; and a tea [email protected], addressed service originally owned by Napoleon, which the to the Grants Officer. 10th Duke cannily bought for less than half what Napoleon paid for it. Lisa Mason then showed us round the Design for Living gallery, which takes us from the Great Reviews Exhibition of 1851 up to the Festival of Britain of a century later. At the start, a case of mass-produced Review - Tour of Art & Design galleries mid-19th century products is cleverly contrasted National Museum of Scotland, 23 September 2016 with an opposing case of high-end decorative art By Matthew Jarron, University of Dundee from the same period. Among the many highlights of this gallery is an abundance of work in different In the second phase of its ambitious media by Phoebe Anna Traquair, including a masterplan to transform Scotland's national gorgeous piano with decorative panels inspired by museum, NMS unveiled ten new galleries in July D.G. Rossetti's Willowwood poems. This is the first showcasing two of the organisation's most time that the museum has been able to show so significant areas of collecting – science & much of its Traquair material, and Lisa informed us technology and art & design. SSAH members spent that Phoebe's husband Ramsay (a palaeontologist) an illuminating two hours being shown round the used to work at NMS when it was the Museum of art & design galleries by four of the specialist 2 Science & Art. The Charles Rennie Mackintosh time. Over a third of the holdings in NMS's Art & pieces shown beside these are more familiar and Design collections are textiles, so it's wonderful to thus perhaps less impressive, though one unusual see highlights so beautifully displayed here. Two item is a dressing table designed by Mackintosh major recent acquisitions are highlighted – the but made by prisoners of war on the Isle of Wight Bernat Klein collection (c.4500 items) and the Jean in 1916 (lent by the V&A). The Great War's Muir collection (c.18, 000 items) – and these allow influence on design is seen elsewhere in the gallery the whole process of design to be explored with some spoons made by Liberty to raise money through sketches, patterns, test pieces and so for wounded soldiers. Other notable pieces include forth. Georgina explained the complicated process a textile design by Henry Moore and I was of making mounts to display the textiles on, none particularly pleased to see some impressive Gothic- more so than for the extraordinarily shaped Court style wrought iron gates by the Dundee designer Mantua of the 1750s, which required a highly Bruce Talbert, once as well-known as Chippendale complex (but completely hidden) method of but sadly overlooked today. display. Overall some 6,000 hours of conservators' Sarah Rothwell then introduced the Making time went in to preparing the pieces for this & Creating gallery, featuring highlights of the gallery, and some of their painstaking work is museum's exceptional contemporary craft shown in videos in this and the other galleries. collection, undoubtedly one of the finest in the UK. Visitors wanting to find out more after their visit Greeting us first are bold ceramic designs by the are encouraged to go online to www.nms- likes of Picasso and Cocteau, and a wonderfully mode.co.uk which looks in further detail at some quirky glass piece by Picasso that NMS has recently of the amazing objects in the collection. acquired (the first such piece in any UK national Our visit concluded with the central section collection). The influence of Bernard Leach on of this gallery, entitled Cutting Edge. Here some of studio pottery is then explored before we move on the latest fashion items to enter the collections are to an exquisite display of glass pieces, including a shown (a particularly striking example is Paco striking organic-looking piece by Sam Herman, who Rabanne’s metal dress) and the intention is to played an important role in the development of change this periodically so that the gallery is studio glass in the UK; Sarah informed us that in always up-to-date. the 1960s he had studied at Edinburgh College of Even in two hours we only scratched the Art on a Fulbright scholarship. What is particularly surface of these attractive and intelligently effective about this gallery is that the curators have designed galleries, and I’m sure I won’t be the only succeeded in preventing the designers from person attending the tour who will soon be coming following their natural instinct to fill the space with back for a closer look. graphics and colour, which works well elsewhere but here would have distracted badly from the Review - Visit to Kellie Castle, 22 October 2016 beauty of the objects.