Archive
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Artists' Christmas Cards
3 - 23 Dec 2024 Read more -
John Byrne
In the Studio 16 Nov - 23 Dec 2024 The Fine Art Society presents John Byrne: In the Studio at 6 Dundas Street, Edinburgh from 15 November to 23 December, with paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture by the inimitable John Byrne (1940-2023). Included in the exhibition are personal effects from the artist's studio with costumes, character designs and works... Read more -
Twentieth Century
16 Nov - 23 Dec 2024 Modern paintings, drawings, ceramics and textiles from the 20th century: Maxwell Armfield Robert Henderson Blyth RSA RSW William Crosbie RSA Pat Douthwaite Ian Fleming RSA RSW William Gillies RA RSA PRSW Gerald Laing Jennifer McRae RSA Austin Osman Spare Keith Vaughan Betty Blandino Robin Welch Althea McNish, and more. Read more -
British Art Fair
at Saatchi Gallery 26 - 29 Sep 2024 Stand 12 at the British Art Fair 2024, with work by John Byrne, D Y Cameron, William Crosbie, Pat Douthwaite, Kenny Hunter, Gerald Laing, Iain Macnab, John Maclauchlan Milne, John McLean and more. Saatchi Gallery Duke of York Square King’s Road London SW3 4RY 26 - 29 September Thursday 26th... Read more -
The Extinction Collection
with Explorers Against Extinction 20 Sep - 19 Oct 2024 Daniel Beltrá, Bigert & Bergström, Richard Deacon, Jon Foreman, Andy Goldsworthy, Beverly Joubert, Michael Kenna, Eleanor Lakelin, Richard Mosse, David Nash, Michael Pinsky, Peter Randall-Page, Sebastião Salgado, Conrad Shawcross, Julian Stair, Emily Young Explorers Against Extinction has partnered with The Fine Art Society to exhibit a remarkable collection of work... Read more -
John McLean
Pleasure Garden 20 Sep - 9 Nov 2024 I work towards such an interdependence of parts that nothing could be added or taken away: a kind of absolute. When it happens, the eye and the spirit join up, just as the ear and soul do when you listen to a fine song. The Fine Art Society presents an... Read more -
Karen Lamond
Rubbish 20 Sep - 9 Nov 2024 Read more -
The Glasgow Boys
20 Sep - 9 Nov 2024 Read more -
Gerald Laing: Myth & Muse
The Cult of Celebrity 6 Jun - 31 Aug 2024 Over five decades Gerald Laing explored the cult of celebrity. He made the myth and mystery of stars his subject, elevating them to become his muse. Enigmatic and depersonalised through dot art and abstraction, their public image – disseminated through mass imagery – often belies tales of tragedy. Laing’s first... Read more -
Scottish Impressions
6 Jun - 31 Aug 2024 Our summer exhibition opens with an exquisite example of Pre-Raphaelite painting by Waller Hugh Paton. Sublime evening light suffuses the scene which takes in a moored boat on a loch in the Trossachs. Loch Achray, the subject of this painting, is only a couple of miles from Glen Finglas, the... Read more -
Art & Design
1950 - 2000 26 Apr - 1 Jun 2024 The Fine Art Society presents an exhibition of paintings, prints textiles and objects from 1950 to 2000 including a group of textiles by Trinidad-born designer Althea McNish, produced by Heal's and Hull Traders Ltd in 1958-1960. Artists include Edward Bawden, John Byrne, Waistel Cooper, Pat Douthwaite, Ian Fleming, John Houston,... Read more -
Art & Design
1890 - 1950 22 Mar - 1 Jun 2024 Read more -
Works on Paper
18th & 19th century 22 Mar - 20 Apr 2024 Read more -
Derek Clarke RSA RSW
Watercolours of Donegal and Connemara, 1938-1946 22 Mar - 20 Apr 2024 1912 Born Longthorpe, Peterborough, England 1927-1931 Educated at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire 1931-1935 Studied at Slade School of Art, London University 1937 Portrait painting in the Republic of Ireland 1938-1939 Lived and painted in Connemara 1939-1945 Served in Durham Light Infantry (commissioned) 1943-1944 Wounded in Tunisia and spend... Read more -
20th Century Printmaking
1 Feb - 16 Mar 2024 Read more -
Fine Shadings
250 Years of Painting in Scotland 1 Feb - 16 Mar 2024 The definition of Scottish Art is wide and draws in artworks and artists with many kinds of association with Scotland. The pictures in this show illustrate not just topography, for which Scottish art is best known, but culture too: daily life, farming, fishing and religion. Within them are observations of... Read more -
Frederick Burrows
Textile Designs 10 Nov - 22 Dec 2023 In their final year of training, students at design schools in the early 20th century made their own original designs having previously copied those of others. These designs for textiles and wallpaper by Frederick Burrows include studies of past masters such as William Morris and also his own prize winning... Read more -
Tim Pomeroy
Metamorphosis 10 Nov - 22 Dec 2023 The rhythm and patterns of nature form the core of our new exhibition of sculpture by Arran-based artist Tim Pomeroy. Pomeroy’s work heightens the organic geometries of the natural world, picking out and amplifying features. There is also a human element to Pomeroy’s sculptures, in which ideas of ceremony and... Read more -
Ron Sandford
The Everyday, Every Day 10 Nov - 22 Dec 2023 Personal vignettes from a life in Hong Kong, Shetland, and travels in Italy. Ron Sandford’s paintings communicate his lived experience of these culturally and geographically distinct environments through commonplace items, often before deftly captured backdrops. For 30 years, Ron illustrated books and newspapers and undertook large scale architectural commissions such... Read more -
George Jamesone
Painter of Kings 22 Sep - 4 Nov 2023 Charles I’s royal visit to Edinburgh in 1633 was met with an extravagant procession through the streets of the city, capped with a series of triumphal arches showing portraits of more than one hundred of the past kings of Scotland. George Jamesone (c.1587-1644) , who had established himself as a... Read more -
John Byrne
Blowin' Wild 22 Sep - 4 Nov 2023 Read more -
David Eustace: Thereafter
at the Signet Library 31 Jul - 13 Aug 2023 THEREAFTER at the Signet Library Parliament Square, Edinburgh EH1 1RF 10am - 4pm daily Free admission 'The only constant is change' -Heraclitus, Greek philosopher, c.500 BC Nothing remains as it was; the wind, a river flowing, a snowfall, the downpour of rain, sunlight on a landscape, the landscape itself.... Read more -
History of the New
1 Jun - 29 Jul 2023 Our summer show brings together artists who found themselves working at the threshold of the modern. It was this self-awareness and urge to make it new that motivated them as individuals and, for some, brought them into movements. They rejected the received wisdom of their day in favour of forging... Read more -
Portrait Mode
1 Jun - 29 Jul 2023 To mark the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery this June, we're joining their celebration of all things portraiture in Portrait Mode. Galleries across the UK will be supporting the NPG by getting into Portrait Mode this summer to mark the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery on 22 June... Read more -
John McLean
Momentino 20 Apr - 18 May 2023 John was a truly lyrical abstract artist. He spoke of his work as like singing and dancing. To walk into a room of large-scale canvases by him is to be uplifted. In these small works on paper, the work is no less lyrical. Indeed, the media used lends the abstraction... Read more -
John Knox
The Light Sublime 23 Mar - 10 May 2023 An exhibition on the landscape and people of the West of Scotland will accompany the paintings by John Knox (1776-1845) Whether on a grand or diminutive scale, John Knox’s work depicts the epic spectacle of areas that, until the late 18th century, were not much visited. His subject was Loch... Read more -
From the Window
Online Exhibition 23 Mar - 6 May 2023 Artists have often depicted windows as portals between two realms: the real and the imagined, the intimate and the unfamiliar. It is a divide between a private place and a public space. With work by: Sir David Wilkie Walter Geikie Sir James Lawton Wingate Gerald Leslie Brockhurst Iain MacNab Sir... Read more -
Master Drawings New York
at Robert Simon Fine Art 20 - 28 Jan 2023 An exhibition of British and Scottish pictures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and decorative art and furniture from the late nineteenth century: prints by James Whistler; a group of Glasgow Boys including Joseph Crawhall, Sir James Guthrie, and Arthur Melville; Scottish Colourists FCB Cadell and SJ Peploe; and an... Read more -
The Print Show
12 Jan - 17 Feb 2023 Read more -
The Wonderful World of James McBey
The Fine Art Society and Fettes Fine Art 18 Nov - 23 Dec 2022 Over a period of 50 years James McBey (1883-1959) would have studios in London, the US and Morocco. From the north-east of Scotland, where he was born and raised, he went on to travel extensively through Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the States and central America. He produced a... Read more -
Waistel Cooper 1921-2003
Part Two 29 Sep - 18 Nov 2022 Read more -
True to Nature
Trees in Scottish Art 23 Sep - 12 Nov 2022 Trees, as an extension of the natural landscape, have been weighted with meaning throughout the history of art. Over time allegory gave way to the decorative and picturesque. The broader meanings and metaphors, however, remained. Our exhibition, starting with Alexander Nasmyth (1758- 1840), looks at paintings by Scottish artists and... Read more -
David Eustace: Memento Mori
at Gleneagles Townhouse 15 Sep - 9 Oct 2022 Following the exhibition in our gallery at 25 Carnaby Street, The Fine Art Society presents Scottish photographer and director David Eustace's Memento Mori at Gleneagles Townhouse in Edinburgh, from 15 September to 9 October 2022. The works are selected from Eustace’s most recent work responding to the perception and inevitability... Read more -
John McLean
Flare 22 Jul - 15 Sep 2022 We have produced an online viewing room for this exhibition. Please click here to visit. All works are available to purchase, for prices click 'Enquire' on the relevant artwork or contact us at edinburgh@thefineartsociety.com , +44 (0)131 557 4050. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2022, The Fine Art Society presents... Read more -
David Eustace
Memento Mori 30 Jun - 26 Aug 2022 “Many celebrate the cherry tree blossom in full bloom, while others grow disappointed when its flowers last only a few weeks, having waited so long to witness such splendour. Many celebrate not the bloom but the fragility and impermanence, so splendid, with anticipation and longing. They savour the moment, knowing... Read more -
The Glasgow Boys
30 Jun - 26 Aug 2022 When the Glasgow Boys rose to prominence in the 1880s, there was a sense of wonder at how a group of Scottish painters could hold such sway in the academies, salons and secessions of western Europe and North America. The group’s firm grasp on modernity brought a new lease of... Read more -
Will Maclean
Time and Tides 22 Jun - 16 Jul 2022 Concurrent with a major retrospective at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre, The Fine Art Society presents an exhibition of work by Will Maclean RSA. Maclean’s art serves as a tangible record and reference to culture, tradition, history and identity. A proponent of box construction art and the examination of found objects,... Read more -
John Byrne
Ceci n'est pas une rétrospective 25 May - 16 Jul 2022 “Paisley ‘buddies’ are, to a man and a woman, total oddballs. I should know, I’m one of them,” said John once. John’s formal life as an artist began aged 18 when he entered Glasgow School of Art. His mother said he started drawing in his pram. A year before... Read more -
Peter de Francia 1921-2012
4 Mar - 2 Apr 2022 Peter de Francia’s vibrant palette, dynamic compositions and evocative subjects reflect a style of painting that developed out of Picassos’ modernism. Some are dark and others funny. Best known for large-scale, sometimes violent depictions of combat and struggle, de Francia also gave attention to bucolic scenes of industry and recreation.... Read more -
Waistel Cooper 1921-2003
Part one 14 Jan - 25 Feb 2022 2021 marked the centenary year of artist-potter Waistel Cooper's birth. It seemed fitting that this was the moment The Fine Art Society, with its long history of dealing in decorative and applied arts, acquired a large single owner collection of Waistel's ceramics, with over one hundred pieces dating from the... Read more -
Norman McBeath and Edmund de Waal
Perdendosi 14 Jan - 26 Feb 2022 Perdendosi is a limited edition set of twelve hand-printed original black and white photographs by Norman McBeath RSA together with a direct and personal response to the photographs by Edmund de Waal. The title, Perdendosi, is a musical term meaning to gradually die away. The photographs are a... Read more -
Scotland
2 - 22 Dec 2021 For a small country, and one whose nation school was late in developing, the history of Scotland’s visual arts is particularly rich and diverse. After The Act of Union in 1707, the newly founded image of Great Britain provoked Scotland into defining its own identity. For many Scots, The Act... Read more -
Rituals
New sculpture by Tim Pomeroy 18 Nov - 23 Dec 2021 For Tim, ritual is a multi-layered term. On one level, the process of sculpting with its repeated, meditative motions of carving, smoothing, refining forms a sort of ritual, paying reverence to the material being worked. On another, notions of ceremony and mysticism are embedded in the forms these works take... Read more -
Barbara Balmer
18 Nov - 23 Dec 2021 Barbara Balmer’s pictures have a curious, even surreal, edge. In her instantly recognisable style, she took the everyday and simplified it into shapes and patterns filled with subtle gradations of colour. Balmer produced work over five decades. Her quiet, often large-scale oils, belie a poetry of mood. Their stillness gives... Read more -
James McBey
Etchings and Watercolours 11 - 26 Nov 2021 'He began at dawn; he spent hours at the end of the Rialto or at a table under the shady colonnade of the Chioggia Cafe in the Piazzetta making pen and ink notes of figures; or in a gondola on the canals or the Giudecca, making studies of shipping, of... Read more -
Through the Eyes of Anthony Whishaw RA
4 Oct - 26 Nov 2021 This Autumn, The Fine Art Society in London will be holding a large retrospective show of nonagenarian Royal Academician, Anthony Whishaw, with works from the 1950s through to the present day. They will map the artist's unique and mercurial vision across his long career, and recreate a sense of his... Read more -
Twenty Twenty One
30 Sep - 13 Nov 2021 The Fine Art Society presents an exhibition of work by Scottish artists, including: Allan Ramsay, Sir Henry Raeburn, John Knox, Sir David Wilkie, Patrick Nasmyth, David Roberts, Alexander Johnston, Sam Bough, Robert Herdman, Phoebe Traquair, Sir James Guthrie, Charles Hodge Mackie, Sir D Y Cameron, John Maclauchlin Milne, Sir James... Read more -
Nicola Tassie
Sweet Dreams 1 - 24 Sep 2021 Nicola Tassie is a ceramicist who initially studied painting at the Central School of Art. The crossover between the painted image and mark making in clay is a continuing preoccupation in her practice. Her wall-mounted ‘slip pillows’ playfully evoke a painted canvas on the wall, and present us with a... Read more -
The Glasgow Boys & Galloway Pictures
Harbour Cottage Gallery, Kirkcudbright 14 - 29 Aug 2021 Harbour Cottage Gallery Castle Bank, Kirkcudbright DG6 4LB Open 11am to 5pm Monday through Saturday 12pm to 5pm on Sundays In this, our 6th exhibition at Harbour Cottage Gallery and 43rd in Galloway, The Fine Art Society presents an exhibition of work by The Glasgow Boys, alongside pictures by 19th... Read more -
Summer
The Fine Art Society in London 1 Aug - 1 Sep 2021 'The Fine Art Society...where beautiful things are as plentiful as blackberries in September' In 1896, not twenty-five years after the company had opened, the arts editor of The Sketch penned this lovely phrase, describing our galleries as he was guided around admiring 'the many prints, curios and pictures there enshrined.'... Read more -
Owners of the Soil
Will Maclean and Shaun Fraser 29 Jul - 18 Sep 2021 The Fine Art Society presents Owners of the Soil, an exhibition of work by Will Maclean and Shaun Fraser, examining ties between land, identity and ownership through the early Scottish diaspora’s dual identity of colonised and coloniser. Maclean’s boxed constructions, collages and drawings recount the experiences of six residents of... Read more -
Hylton Nel at Eighty
17 Jun - 30 Jul 2021 For the London Art Week 2021, displayed in our gallery on Soho's Carnaby Street, we are thrilled to present Hylton Nel at Eighty. Celebrating Hylton's 80th birthday year and over five decades working as an 'artist-potter', this exhibition is also significant as it marks his relationship with The Fine Art... Read more -
John Armstrong
An Artist's Themes 17 Jun - 31 Jul 2021 John Armstrong was an artist on the peripheries: unlabelled, and unallied to any artistic movement. His career is a peculiar, rich and varied one devoted to surface texture, allegory and symbolism. This small collection of works does not seek to demonstrate the breadth of Armstrong's career, but provides an insight... Read more -
The Glasgow Boys
10 Jun - 24 Jul 2021 When the Glasgow Boys rose to prominence in the 1880s, there was a sense of wonder at how a group of Scottish painters could hold such sway in the academies, salons and secessions of western Europe and North America. The group’s firm grasp on modernity brought a new lease of... Read more -
Disegno
17th to 21st century drawings by Scottish artists 10 Jun - 24 Jul 2021 The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh presents Disegno, an exhibition of drawings by Scottish artists from the 17th through 21st centuries. Draughtsmanship and linework are at the forefront of this exhibition, bringing together portraiture, landscape and historical subjects. With work by: David Allan, John Byrne, John Clerk of Eldin, Robert... Read more -
Anthony Whishaw RA: Downstream Flood
4 - 6 Jun 2021 Anthony Whishaw RA claims no association with any particular art movement, stating instead that ‘each painting and work on paper makes its own separate demands’. His work deals with explorations of memory and experience. On the edge of representation, varying in intent, scale and depiction, it seeks to reconcile illusion... Read more -
Joan Eardley
6 - 29 May 2021 Unafraid to step outside societal conventions, from the outset, Joan Eardley developed a practice that challenged the norms of her time. The result was a defining Scottish style and a visceral account of people and place from Townhead in Glasgow to Catterline in Angus. To mark a centenary since her... Read more -
New Works
6 - 29 May 2021 The Fine Art Society presents an exhibition of newly acquired work from 19th and 20th century Scottish artists, including: Patrick William Adam, Cosmo Alexander, Phyllis Bone, Sam Bough, John Boyd, John Byrne, George Paul Chalmers, James Cowie, William Gouw Ferguson, William Miller Frazer, Jack Knox, Charles Hodge Mackie, John MacWhirter,... Read more -
Spring '21
12 Apr - 31 May 2021 Celebrating our return to the gallery on Carnaby Street, Spring '21 also revisits a grand old Fine Art Society tradition of holding mixed shows comprised of decorative arts and furniture alongside paintings, prints and sculpture. Held across two floors of our new Georgian townhouse gallery, Spring '21 represents the diversity of artwork that pass through the gallery from late nineteenth century artworks from James Whistler and Walter Greaves, to early twentieth century pictures by Walter Sickert the British Post-Impressiosnts Clare Atwood and Spencer Gore. Eric Ravilious' 1937 lithograph, Newhaven Harbour, leads our print offering, alongside other works on paper by Modern British Artists including Maxwell Ashby Armfield, Edward Bawden, Augustus Edwin John, Richard Eurich, and David Bomberg. Keith Coventry tops the bill with his Hertford Estate, 1996, which originates from a series of works that nod to late-twentieth century experiences of the modernist utopian approach to architecture of post-war Britain. Read more -
Coast
1 Apr - 1 May 2021 Find the online viewing room for Coast here. Scotland’s coastline is one which naturally inspires in its dramatic geography. Coast presents a journey around the shores of the Scottish homeland, from Shetland to Galloway, uncovering the artists and works which have helped shape Scottish artistic identity through the centuries. The... Read more -
Stuart Franklin
Narcissus 6 Mar - 17 Apr 2021 Find the online viewing room for Stuart Franklin: Narcissus here . Stuart Franklin (born 1956), member of Magnum Photos since 1989, has photographed some of the most important news events of the 21st Century – from the massacre at Tiananmen Square to the Intifada – as well as producing many... Read more -
Modern
18 Feb - 27 Mar 2021 20th century Scottish works of art, including Barbara Balmer, Robert Henderson Blyth, John Boyd, John Byrne, FCB Cadell, Ian Fleming, William Gillies, Jack Knox, William McCance, and John McLean. Read more -
Looking Out
18 Feb - 27 Mar 2021 Read more -
John McLean
Forza: works on paper 14 Jan - 13 Feb 2021 As a gallery whose offering spans the centuries, the radical shift in the way our spaces look with John’s work always gives us an uplifting and refreshing surprise. The Boston Pictures, our penultimate show with John, felt as if the marks were dancing along the walls; the effect on visitors... Read more -
John McLean
Forza: prints 14 Jan - 27 Mar 2021 As a gallery whose offering spans the centuries, the radical shift in the way our spaces look with John’s work always gives us an uplifting and refreshing surprise. The Boston Pictures, our penultimate show with John, felt as if the marks were dancing along the walls; the effect on visitors... Read more -
Printmaking
1920-1940 14 Jan - 13 Feb 2021 Read more -
Christmas
at The Fine Art Society 4 - 23 Dec 2020 Read more -
Victoria Orr Ewing
The Light Between 20 Nov - 23 Dec 2020 The light between charts the ever changing skies over Harris and South Uist. Churning, luminescent clouds dwarf empty land and seascapes. Painted last autumn, the glowing machair and heatherclad hillsides inject colour into otherwise dream like scenes. Large scale oils and smaller, quickly worked acrylics on paper make up Victoria... Read more -
Nicole Farhi
Couples 20 Nov - 23 Dec 2020 The Fine Art Society in London is delighted to announce Couples, an exhibition of miniature busts of the leading voices of 20th century female liberation that guide us through the history of women’s sexual emancipation, sculpted and painted over the last seven months by Nicole Farhi MRSS. These couples were... Read more -
Robert Powell
Phantom Things 30 Oct - 28 Nov 2020 A highly scholarly body of work, Phantom Things both intellectually and visually identifies the oddly dystopian future we face as a result of our constant need to collect and consume. In this, Robert’s second solo exhibition with The Fine Art Society, his singular voice draws attention towards our obsessions with... Read more -
Twenty Twenty
2 Oct - 14 Nov 2020 The Fine Art Society is now almost 145 years old and has survived two world wars, depressions, a financial crash and, most recently, a global pandemic. The decision to relinquish our original building on New Bond Street was a sad one, but necessary. With the slate wiped clean, we have... Read more -
The Wilkie Tradition
25 Sep - 24 Oct 2020 Scottish pastoral life became a literary focus at the close of the 18th century in the poetry of Burns, Ramsay and Fergusson. This, combined with an emerging availability of engravings after the Dutch and Fleming masters, encouraged artists in Scotland to look closer to home for their subject matter and... Read more -
Twenty Twenty
25 Sep - 14 Nov 2020 Fra Giovanni Giocondo, a late 15th, early 16th century priest and scholar who designed the bridge at Notre Dame said, 'The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see -... Read more -
Simple Forms
The language of British Abstraction 3 - 25 Sep 2020 'The creative spirit is one, indivisible goal, and the greatness of a civilization rests on achieving a creative unit. Unity does not mean, however, uniformity as each artist should be the expression not only of a common spirit but also of a personality... so much more meaningfully the more unconsciously.'... Read more -
Hang 4 //
Modern Scottish Pictures 1 - 19 Sep 2020 Celebrating the variety of 20th century Scottish Art, this selection of works captures modern perspectives of Scottish identity. In the face of global societal and technological change, the artists’ focus on the natural is evident, from Marzaroli’s photographic captures of traditional Scottish pastoral life, to Jennifer McRae’s latest work West... Read more -
A History in Small Pictures
31 Jul - 29 Aug 2020 A survey of Scottish art over three centuries. Diminutive paintings by, amongst others, John Clerk of Eldin, Sir David Wilkie, Alexander Nasmyth, Sir Henry Raeburn, Sam Bough, John MacWhirter, E A Walton, Anne Redpath, William Crosbie and John Houston. Together they bring together aspects of Scottish culture, geography and identity.... Read more -
British Realism
1900-1935 30 Jul - 1 Sep 2020 'Realism is a fine, manly, practical word that appeals to everyone as safe and satisfactory' -- Wyndam Lewis Since the emergence of Post-War abstraction realism in art, particularly in Britain, has often been written off as retrograde and the anthethis to Modernism. Yet the Realist movement itself, which started in... Read more -
James McNeill Whistler
The Original Printmaker 19 Jun - 25 Jul 2020 James McNeill Whistler was one of the first and most illustrious artists to show in our gallery’s history. The Fine Art Society was the scene of one of his greatest triumphs, the exhibition he called Arrangement in White and Yellow held in 1883. It was a revolutionary show conceived by... Read more -
John Byrne
Welcome To My World 19 Jun - 25 Jul 2020 John is an epiphany baby, born 6th January 1940. 2020 began, then, with a notable birthday and an unreasonably busy calendar that included a new theatre production, in conversations, a television profile, a legion of requests that are patiently accepted and a gallery show. Much of it to celebrate him... Read more -
Ron Sandford
114°E / 1°W Hong Kong to Shetland 14 May - 13 Jun 2020 Hong Kong and Yell: two halves of The Fine Art Society’s first exhibition of drawings by Ron Sandford (b.1937). Island life from two geographically and culturally distinct and distant places are united in Ron’s appreciation of the commonplace – or common place – both richly detailed microcosms. In the mid... Read more -
Hang 3 //
Scottish Painting 1950-1980 19 Mar - 25 Apr 2020 The decades following WW2 saw artists take new forms of artistic expression. The order and rationalism that had preceded was rejected. Painting became more gestural and instinctive; this was achieved through the application of paint not just from brushes but palette knives and any other means that gave the artist... Read more -
John Halliday
The Monkey Palace 6 - 28 Mar 2020 Now in his late 80s, John Halliday lives two doors away from where he was born in Kirkcudbright. Life and travels have taken him far and wide to complete this circle. His childhood in the town brought him in contact with the likes of Jessie M King, her husband, EA... Read more -
John Clerk of Eldin
1728-1812 13 - 29 Feb 2020 A prominent figure in Enlightenment circles, John Clerk began producing prints in his 40s with the encouragement of English landscape painter Paul Sandby and architect Robert Adam. The three took drawing trips together having met through the business dealings of their families. Clerk produced sets of etchings that were sold... Read more -
Hang 2 //
Scottish Painting 1900-1940 13 Feb - 14 Mar 2020 The years 1900 to 1939 saw Britain move from a period of relative innocence and comfort to the trauma of war. After World War 1, artists retreated to more traditional, figurative art. The brutality of war encouraged them to step away from the radical. Amongst the artists whose pictures have... Read more -
Hang 1 //
Early Scottish painting from the 17th & 18th centuries 13 Jan - 8 Feb 2020 Read more -
The Print Show
13 Jan - 8 Feb 2020 The Print Show presented an annual exhibition of Scottish printmaking, featuring three centuries of etchings, drypoint, woodcuts and lithography. Exhibited artists included: Sir Muirhead Bone, James Mcbey, Gerald Brockhurst, Robert Sargent Austin, Charles Tunnicliffe, William Wilson, Ian Fleming, James Mcintosh Patrick Read more -
Scottish Painting
1650-1950 15 Nov - 23 Dec 2019 1650 to 1950 was a presentation of three centuries of Scottish Painting, from 17 th century works by William Gouw Ferguson through still life, landscape painting and portraiture to the 20th century. Included were works by Alexander Runciman, Alexander Nasmyth, John Knox, Horatio McCulloch, Sam Bough, Arthur Melville, Sir D... Read more -
Fiona Dean
The Arrangement of Skin 15 Nov - 23 Dec 2019 The arrangement of skin, was an exhibition of taxidermy art by Fiona Dean. Blending science and artistry, Dean showcases a variety of bird species in surprising and unconstrained arrangements. Dean’s fascination with the process of taxidermy became an artistic calling following training with Scottish taxidermist George Jamieson in 2012. Dean’s... Read more -
Timorous Beasties
15 Nov - 23 Dec 2019 Design duo Timorous Beasties returned to The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh for their third exhibition, showcasing a series of folding privacy screens. Each featured a unique screenprinted design over their signature fabrics. Timorous Beasties was founded in Glasgow in 1990 by Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons, who met studying... Read more -
John Byrne
Then Till Now 27 Sep - 9 Nov 2019 John Byrne: Then Till Now was a small exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints by John Byrne, dating from the late 1960s to today. Early works included watercolours signed 'Patrick' and a hand painted guitar from 1968. Robbie Coltrane was depicted as Danny McGlone from the BBC's Tutti Frutti, written... Read more -
Intimate
A Portrait 25 Jul - 31 Aug 2019 Close and personal portraiture: painting, sculpture and photography by living and twentieth century artists whose sitters are closest to them or whose inner workings engage them, sometimes the artist themselves. Scottishness links the artists, be that by birth, training or home. With work by Robert Gemmell Hutchison, Mabel Royds, William... Read more -
Nicole Farhi
Writing Heads 25 Jul - 31 Aug 2019 Writing Heads was an exhibition of 25 busts of 20th century novelists and playwrights sculpted in ciment fondu and painted by Nicole Farhi MRSS, from Françoise Sagan to Muriel Spark and Samuel Beckett. Farhi models her figures as a response to their identity and work, sculpting after her feelings towards... Read more -
Holy Rood
Norman McBeath and Robert Crawford 31 May - 22 Jun 2019 Holy Rood presented a series of 7 photographs by Edinburgh based photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath RSA that ran alongside a long form poem by Robert Crawford. Holy Rood is a translation of the untitled Old English poem ‘The Dream of the Rood’. The collaboration between Crawford and McBeath sees... Read more -
The Sublime And The Beautiful
31 May - 20 Jul 2019 The Sublime And The Beautiful was an exhibition of Scottish artworks from the 17th through 21st centuries. Incorporating oil, watercolour, sculpture and printmaking, the exhibited works depicted the sublime or the beautiful in their portrayals of nature, mythology, death and humanity. With work by William Gouw Ferguson, Alexander Runciman, Alexander... Read more -
John McLean
Behind the Mirror 3 - 25 May 2019 The work in this show was produced in the face of considerable adversity. John was diagnosed with MSA/P – a nasty, neurological disease with some symptoms similar to Parkinson’s - but continued to visit his studio twice a week to produce a remarkable body of work. At the time he... Read more -
In The Frame
Small Paintings and Antique Frames 18 Jan - 16 Feb 2019 An exhibition of small paintings by Scottish artists displayed within groups of antique frames from the 18th-20th centuries. These were a selection of frames from our extensive period frame stock and are for sale. With work by Sir Henry Raeburn, Sir David Wilkie, John Fleming, William Kidd, William Clark of... Read more -
Tim Pomeroy
Marble Slate Wood 16 Nov - 22 Dec 2018 Based on northern European archaeology, natural history and the everyday designed world, the sculptures on display were made in traditional sculptural materials: stone, wood, slate, and marble. The forms, shapes and ideas are both contemporary and ancient. The Neolithic archaeological finds of Arran inspire Pomeroy. They lend his work a... Read more -
John McLean
The Boston Pictures, 1982 12 Oct - 10 Nov 2018 The Boston Pictures, 1982 was an exhibition of works by John McLean, regarded internationally as one of Britain’s most significant abstract painters. In 1982, a teaching job at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School took John McLean to America. Upon arrival, he discovered that his workload was lighter than... Read more -
Fleming At Fifty
Radicals, Pioneers and Rebels 15 Aug - 3 Sep 2018 In partnership with The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation, the exhibition showcased historic nineteenth and early twentieth Scottish paintings in modern and timely contexts, focusing on pioneering female artists, migration and refugee status, and the endless search for truth in art. The exhibition centred around six historic paintings from the Fleming Collection... Read more -
Assemblage
Found Objects and Boxed Reliefs 20 Jul - 11 Aug 2018 As part of Edinburgh Art Festival (26 July – 26 August 2018), Assemblage focused on Scottish artists’ contribution to the medium pioneered by Cubism and Surrealism, exploring the significance of found objects and constructed narratives in conveying history and cultural identity. With works by a variety of artists and covering... Read more -
Robert Powell
Between the Lost Places 20 Jul - 3 Sep 2018 Powell’s minutely detailed etchings and sculptures often depict satirical and dark humoured scenes, referencing art history, literature and modern society. Between The Lost Places is a meditation on real and imagined topographies, cartography and modern travel, recalling the sensibility of his home city of Edinburgh. A graduate of Edinburgh College... Read more -
Ten Paintings By A. R. Sturrock RSA (1885-1953)
15 Jun - 14 Jul 2018 Alick Riddell Sturrock RSA (1885-1953), brought together ten works depicting scenes across Scotland and England. Sturrock had great affinity with rural and country locales; a love reflected in his art. The ten exhibited paintings represent the breadth of Sturrock’s depictions – from farmhouses and cottages to lochs, coastal scenes and... Read more -
Will Maclean
Narratives 20 Apr - 12 May 2018 Will Maclean’s art serves as a tangible record and reference to culture, tradition, history and identity. A proponent of box construction art and the examination of found objects, the narratives in his works document the cultural and practical traditions of Scottish Highland and coastal communities. Alongside his academic career at... Read more -
Graham Rich
Anchored Under Red Rock 20 Apr - 12 May 2018 Anchored Under Red Rock was an exhibition of works from across the career of Devonshire-based artist Graham Rich. Rich’s works range from large scale installations to small constructed scenes formed from the remnants of boats and objects he has found along the Devonshire coast. Often dwarfed against a backdrop of... Read more -
John Byrne
The Boy and the Jabberwock 28 Feb - 29 Mar 2018 This exhibition included John Byrne's work in theatre, film and television through preliminary drawings and character sketches from Tutti Frutti, The Slab Boys and Writer's Cramp. A highlight among these was a framed storyboard from the film adaptation of The Slab Boys, showcasing Byrne's involvement in the project and the... Read more -
Barbara Balmer 1929-2017
28 Feb - 29 Mar 2018 Barbara Balmer 1929-2017 was an exhibition of landscapes, still lifes and portraits in oil and watercolour by Barbara Balmer RSA RSW RGI. Balmer first visited Italy in 1973, and the experience had a dramatic effect on her art. She painted large-scale stylised landscapes of the Tuscan landscape, using soft colour... Read more -
Gerald Brockhurst
A Private Collection 1 - 28 Feb 2018 Comprising works created between 1920 and 1945, this private collection covered the greater part of the artist’s printmaking practice. Born in Birmingham in 1890, Brockhurst showed promising signs of his artistic talent while very young: the then headmaster of the Birmingham School of Art even announced he had discovered ”a... Read more -
Alan Davie
Abstracts 8 - 29 Jan 2018 Providing an opportunity to consider the breadth of the career of Alan Davie (1920-2014) , the exhibition presented a retrospective view of the artist’s work over six decades from 1945 to 2005. The twenty-two works reflected Davie’s early interest in jazz music, and the spontaneous and automatic practice of painting... Read more -
Ethel Gabain
A Distinctive Look 27 Nov 2017 - 3 Jan 2018 This exhibition highlighted many of Ethel Gabain’s characteristic lithographs. It followed on from a successful show earlier this year that introduced her work to a new audience, and re-established her reputation as one of the most skilled and engaging artist-printmakers of her generation. For this exhibition the gallery brought together... Read more -
British Design
27 Nov 2017 - 3 Jan 2018 From Edward William Godwin's remodelling of the gallery's facade in 1881 to James Whistler's redesigning of the gallery space for his seminal exhibition Arrangement in White and Yellow, the gallery has held a long engagment with designers and the decorative arts. The gallery's history represents an intersection of these two... Read more -
Modern Paintings 1940-1985
24 Nov - 23 Dec 2017 Modern Scottish Paintings 1940-1985, was exhibition of works created by Scottish artists in a period that emphasised individualism and rebellion against perceived safety and mundanity in the art that preceded it. Central to the exhibition was the large scale Teddy Boys by Pat Douthwaite, painted two years into her career... Read more -
John Byrne
Rock 'n' Roll 24 Nov - 23 Dec 2017 The Fine Art Society presents Rock ‘n’ Roll, a selling exhibition of works by John Byrne RSA. Central to the exhibition is a large scale oil The Song of the South,which records the link between the thriving textile industry of ninteenth century Paisley and cotton imported from slave plantations in... Read more -
Vigorous Imagination
Then and Now 26 Oct - 18 Nov 2017 2017 marked the 30th anniversary of the ground-breaking exhibition ‘The Vigorous Imagination: New Scottish Art’ presented at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1987 as the lead Edinburgh International Festival art exhibition. In 1987, The Vigorous Imagination showcased the works of 17 young artists who were making waves... Read more -
Lasting Impressions
British Prints from the 19th and 20th Centuries 3 Oct - 21 Nov 2017 Ranging from James McNeill Whistler's visionary etchings of the late 19th century to Victor Pasmore's abstract screenprints of the 1960s, this exhibition presented 19th and 20th century prints by the following British artists: Frank Auerbach, Edward Bawden, Robert Bevan, Edmund Blampied, Gerald Brockhurst, Edward Calvert, David Young Cameron, Geoffrey Clarke,... Read more -
John Byrne
Lullaby of Broadway 12 - 29 Sep 2017 Lullaby of Broadway was the fifth solo exhibition of acclaimed Scottish painter John Byrne at our London gallery. The title of the show is a song known to many. First sung by the Dorsey Brothers in the musical, The Gold Diggers of 1935, the Andrew Sisters took it up a... Read more -
John Copley
The Etchings 12 - 29 Sep 2017 The etchings of John Copley possess an oddity of vision and a highly personal approach to the human body. Ranging from his Mediterranean landscapes and subjects from 1927 to the poignant and innovative self-portrait of his final years, the exhibition presented a varied selection of his works, allowing for his... Read more -
The Glasgow Boys 1870-1910
21 Jul - 28 Aug 2017 In a reaction to the prescribed approach to the Victorian painting of the late nineteenth century, the Glasgow Boys sought a new and ‘modern’ style of painting, where their compositions showed a particular interest in rural realism, in working out-of-doors, and in French-inspired tonal and compositional techniques. This exhibition brought... Read more -
Notable
Highlights from the year 23 Jun - 15 Jul 2017 Notable drew together a selection of the most memorable and significant paintings to have passed through the doors of The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh in 2017. The rarity, ingenuity, ambition and technical wizardry of these works – dating from the 17th century to the present – marked them out... Read more -
Ornis Logos
Paintings, Prints, Taxidermy 21 Jun - 28 Aug 2017 Ornis Logos: an ornithologically themed exhibition of paintings, prints, taxidermy and design from Scottish artists spanning 300 years. The exhibition included one off prints on canvas by Timorous Beasties, taxidermy by Fiona Dean, and deconstructed taxidermy by Silvy Weatherall. Additional works by William Gouw Ferguson, Alexander Fraser Jnr, Edwin Alexander,... Read more -
Modern British Sculpture
20 Jun - 7 Jul 2017 Modern British Sculpture presented an exhibition of works spanning the whole of the twentieth century. Featuring sculptures made from a variety of media and techniques: from academic cast bronzes, to primal stone carvings, to hand-modeled post-war assemblages, these works reflect the rapid trajectory British sculpture over the course of... Read more -
Muse
26 May - 17 Jun 2017 A small exhibition, Muse, drew together a select group of works that reflect the source of artistic inspiration be it an individual, a character from literature or a group. Central to the show was a large and important work by Sir William Quiller Orchardson of Ophelia. Painted in his singular... Read more -
Between Tides
Scotland's working culture of the sea 26 May - 17 Jun 2017 For centuries, artists have been inspired by the sea. A natural boundary, Scotland's coasts and seas are dramatic, varied, highly productive and often awe-inspiring. This exhibition looks at the varied interpretations of a common subject, whether it be natural history, industry, or the people whose lives are determined and shaped... Read more -
Folk and Fancy
Tales and Tradition 21 Apr - 20 May 2017 Central to the show was a large-scale painting by James Howe (1780-1836) of All Hallow’s Fair on Calton Hill (c .1817-22). The last All Hallow’s fair was held in 1813 and Howe has cited a depiction of recent history (the fair) in a part of the historic townscape that was... Read more -
Hamish Fulton
Walking is a Se7en Letter Word 21 Apr - 20 May 2017 Since the early 1970s Fulton has been labelled sculptor, photographer, land artist and conceptual artist. He, however, describes himself as a ‘walking artist’. In 1971 he made the first of numerous walks as a way to experience a physical engagement between man and nature. The resulting work is a translation... Read more -
Modern British Women
6 - 28 Feb 2017 Featuring works by 14 artists, the exhibition sought to uncover and emblazon the work of both celebrated and lesser-known artists working throughout the twentieth century. With a diverse range of mediums, subjects and artistic styles represented, the broad scope of this exhibition provided an insight into how women artists worked... Read more -
GLUCK
6 - 28 Feb 2017 The Fine Art Society was pleased to present a major exhibition of the British painter, Gluck (1895-1978). Featuring 32 works including Gluck’s most important painting, Medallion (1937), the exhibition explored the fascinating life, work and legacy of one of the most pioneering artists of her generation. Born into the wealthy... Read more -
John Copley
An Observer 6 - 23 Dec 2016 The prolific printmaker John Copley (1875-1950), already established as a lithographer, turned to etching in 1917. For the last 20 years of his life it was his preferred medium. Copley, at a time when etching had become unfashionable, enjoyed the lack of constraints and freedom of utterance etching permitted, as... Read more -
British Design
6 Dec 2016 - 5 Jan 2017 Following on from the success of The John Scott Collection exhibition series, The Fine Art Society presented British Design, a celebration of British designers, manufacturers and styles from the late-nineteenth century through the twentieth century. The exhibition included furniture, textile, glass, metal and ceramic design by: A.W. Pugin, John Hardman,... Read more -
John Byrne
Moonshine 18 Nov - 23 Dec 2016 Painted in 2016, the works in this exhibition marked a transitional moment in John Byrne's evolving creativity. Still capturing glimpses of familiar faces: the Teddy boy and the blonde from 1950s Paisley, the cityscape with graffiti and smoky towers, the black guy with a fedora, the self-examining artist. However, these... Read more -
Oscar Marzaroli
Tenements to Towerblocks 18 Nov - 23 Dec 2016 Marzaroli’s subject matter focuses on the urban decay and regeneration of Glasgow in the 1960s: the men of shipyards and steelworks, street life and children. Described as a documentary photographer, Marzaroli engaged and moved amongst his subjects as an equal, a participant. The photographs record the radical changes that took... Read more -
Alexander Nasmyth
His Family and Influence 30 Sep - 12 Nov 2016 'The founder of the landscape painting of Scotland, by his taste and talents took the lead for many years in the patriotic aim of enriching his native land with the representations of her romantic scenery.' - Sir David Wilkie, describing Alexander Nasmyth in a letter of condolence to his widow.... Read more -
Silvy Weatherall
Another Man's Treasure 30 Sep - 12 Nov 2016 Another Man's Treasure, was a wunderkammern of works by Galloway-based artist Silvy Weatherall: paintings, sculptures, disarticulated animal and bird skeletons and their remnants. Silvy finds use for objects that have lost their function or have been discarded: 'the thought of making something out of 'nothing' appeals to me hugely.” Silvy... Read more -
Gerald Laing 1936-2011
A Retrospective 19 Sep - 13 Oct 2016 Gerald Laing 1936-2011 present the first major retrospective, featuring paintings, sculptures and prints spanning the entire career of the British pop artist and sculptor Gerald Laing (1936 - 2011), on the fifth anniversary of his death. . Considered one of the most important artists of his generation, Gerald Laing is... Read more -
Signatures Of Scottish Art
140 Years of the Fine Art Society 10 Jun - 9 Jul 2016 Exhibited during the year that The Fine Art Society celebrated its 140th anniversary, the occasion was marked in our Edinburgh gallery with the exhibition Signatures of Scottish Art. The show included 14 important Scottish paintings from the 17th century to the early 1900s. Works by: Henry Ferguson, David Allan, Allan... Read more -
Samuel Palmer and The Fine Art Society
6 Jun - 7 Jul 2016 Samual Palmer died in 1881 and the gallery staged his memorial exhibition, a major retrospective which was of great importance in establishing his lasting reputation. It was also the pattern for many subsequent shows in the gallery, which is credited with the virtual invention of the one-man-show. Whistler was celebrated... Read more -
Counterpoint: Modern Realism 1910-1950
6 - 26 May 2016 The story of modern art in Britain was often presented traditionally as a narrative journey towards abstraction or gestural expression, exemplified by the work of Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, or the St Ives painters. But alongside this brilliant burning path ran many other contrapuntal threads, each of... Read more -
Laura Knight
From a Private Collection 6 - 26 May 2016 This exhibition included a collection of 28 etchings and aquatints by acclaimed British artist, Laura Knight, which had been held in private hands since being purchased in the 1970’s. Created between 1922 and 1936, the works vividly depicted the intimate and private world of women, and the life of the... Read more -
James McNeill Whistler
Prints 5 - 28 Apr 2016 In 2016 The Fine Art Society staged the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of prints by James McNeill Whistler for 45 years at its New Bond Street gallery. Part of the The Fine Art Societys 140th anniversary celebration, this show featured one of the first and most illustrious artists represented... Read more -
The Print Show
Artist Printmakers 1800-1975 15 Feb - 10 Mar 2016 From William Blake's engraving of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims in 1809-10 to Howard Hodgkin's abstract hand-coloured lithographs of the 1970s, the exhibition will spanned 175 years of artist printmakers production and include 128 works by 49 artists, including Sybil Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Robert Austin, Stanley Roy Badmin, Edward Bawden, Robert Bevan,... Read more -
Tim Pomeroy
Contemporary Sacred 20 Nov - 23 Dec 2015 This was Tim Pomeroy’s inaugural exhibition at The Fine Art Society's gallery in Edinburgh, and was the first major show for the artist in Scotland for over a decade. Tim Pomeroy is often referred to as Britain’s foremost stone carver with his works being included in both private and public... Read more -
John Bulloch Souter
Drawings, Cartoons and Etchings 20 Nov - 23 Dec 2015 Born in Aberdeen in 1890, Souter attended Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen and The Alan Fraser School of Art, Arbroath. His evident talent won him a travelling scholarship to Europe. He first exhibited at the RA in 1914 and continued to show most years until 1952 when he returned to... Read more -
The Art Jeweller
From Castellani to Knox 9 - 13 Nov 2015 The Art Jeweller presented an exhibition of nineteenth and early twentieth-century jewellery, in the line of previous jewellery designers exhibitions held at The Fine Art Society between 1900 and 1987. Many of the artists in this exhibition have become familiar to our patrons over the years. Jessie M. King and... Read more -
The Glasgow Boys
2 Oct - 14 Nov 2015 The Glasgow Boys presented a selected exhibition of paintings by those artists central to the group and others who, inspired by the vanguard's daring and rejection of the establishment. Inspired by the painters of the Barbizon, the Hague School and French Impressionism, these artists worked in a modern European way.... Read more -
Venice
An Exhibition of Drawings, Paintings and Prints 1 - 29 Jul 2015 Venice was celebrated in this exhibition at The Fine Art Society, in which London’s oldest commercial gallery combined with Charles Beddington, Canaletto expert and Old Master specialist, and Hill-Stone Inc. from New York. The exhibition included six of James McNeill Whistler’s Venice etchings and works by other major 19th century... Read more -
The John Scott Collection
Architect-Designers: From Pugin to Voysey 3 - 25 Jun 2015 Architect-Designers: From Pugin to Voysey, at The Fine Art Societys New Bond Street galeries, was the seventh and last exhibition showcasing the renowned John Scott Collection. The selection presented some of the finest pieces in the collection, illustrating a critical period of British design when architects showed that there was... Read more -
Unity Spencer
Lucky to be an Artist 24 Mar - 24 Apr 2015 The Fine Art Society was proud to stage the first West End survey of work by Unity Spencer, daughter of the celebrated twentieth century British artist, Sir Stanley Spencer . The exhibition also marked the publication of Unity's candid autobiography Lucky to be an Artist. The exhibition consisted of fifty... Read more -
The Faeds
A Family of Painters 5 Mar - 22 Apr 2015 John Faed HRSA (1819-1902) / James Faed Senior (1821-1911) / Thomas Faed ARSA RA (1826-1900) / James Faed Junior (1856-1920) / William Cotton Faed (1858-1937) One of the oldest and rarest of Scottish surnames and with its history firmly rooted in the picturesque landscape that is Dumfries and Galloway, for... Read more -
The John Scott Collection
Art Nouveau, Continental Art and Sculpture 25 Feb - 25 Mar 2015 The John Scott Collection of Art Nouveau and Continental design, was presented alongside sculpture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries from The John Scott Collection. The exhibition included major works by both British and European pioneers of the period including Hector Guimard, Emile Gallé, Archibald Knox and Gustave... Read more -
Edwin G. Lucas 1911 – 1990
6 - 28 Feb 2015 In the 1930s, Lucas associated with innovative and, later, influential students at Edinburgh College of Art, including Wilhelmina Barns-Graham from whom Lucas rented a studio in 1939. His involvement with Surrealism dates from this year and his pictures stand apart from anything his contemporaries were producing. Initially inspired by major... Read more -
What Marcel Duchamp Taught Me
10 Oct - 5 Nov 2014 Marking the centenary of Duchamp's readymade, The Fine Art Society was proud to present a major group exhibition What Marcel Duchamp Taught Me. It was the largest show in the history of the gallery at 148 New Bond Street, taking over the entire five floors of the townhouse as over... Read more -
Samuel Bough RSA RSW 1822-1878
3 Oct - 8 Nov 2014 Although not a native Scot - he was born in Carlisle - Sam Bough is one of the most influential figures in the development of nineteenth-century Scottish landscape painting. He was a largely self-taught artist: the early part of his career was spent painting theatrical sets in Manchester and Glasgow.... Read more -
The John Scott Collection
Truth, Beauty, Power: The Designs of Dr. Christopher Dresser 11 Sep - 2 Oct 2014 This exhibition presented the exceptional designs of Dr Christopher Dresser (1834-1904), widely regarded as Britain’s first independent industrial designer and one of the most influential figures in nineteenth-century design. Drawn from the John Scott Collection, the exhibition included a large number of rare and important pieces that had been exhibited... Read more -
The Seven And Five Society 1920-1935
9 - 31 Jul 2014 With exhibitions spanning from 1920, date of the formation of the society, to 1935, when their last exhibition was held at Zwemmer's Gallery, The Seven and Five Society included a total of eighty-seven artists in its fourteen exhibitions, which would go on to shape British Art for decades to come.... Read more -
John Byrne RSA
Dead End 3 Jul - 1 Sep 2014 John Byrne's artistic career began in 1967 when he assumed the identity of the naive painter 'Patrick' for a series of shows at the Portal Gallery, London. A true renaissance man, Byrne is an artist, playwright and theatre designer whose paintings feature in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and... Read more -
The John Scott Collection
Decorative Arts From the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 11 Jun - 3 Jul 2014 The John Scott Collection of British decorative arts had been amassed for over forty years, becoming what many regarded to be the finest collection in private hands. The Fine Art Society was privileged to present this remarkable collection. All works were offered for sale through a series of seven definitive... Read more -
Anne Redpath
12 Paintings 6 - 28 Jun 2014 Anne Redpath is one of the best loved and most important Scottish painters of the twentieth century. She was a personality of starkly contrasting stripes: an intellectual who painted the most direct and expressive pictures; a strict Congregationalist who developed a passion for Catholic architecture and ornament; a political leftist... Read more -
Gerald Laing
20 Sep - 26 Oct 2013 Set to coincide with the Scottish Parliament’s show of Andy Warhol, The Fine Art Society exhibited a sculpture of the artist by fellow pop artist Gerald Laing, accompanied by screenprints from his 1968 ‘Baby, Baby, Wild Thing’ as well as ‘Lincoln Convertible’. The latter, inspired by images from the Zapruder... Read more -
A Family Collection From Boxted House
Robert Bevan and other Modern British art from the collection of Bobby and Natalie Bevan 18 Sep - 3 Oct 2013 All of the works in this exhibition were all part of the collection at Boxted House in Essex, which was the home of Bobby and Natalie Bevan from 1946 until 2001. Bobby was the son of the Camden Town painter Robert Polhill Bevan (1865–1925), and inherited a significant group of... Read more -
Arthur Melville
7 Sep - 18 Oct 2013 Although Arthur Melville was a ‘tremendously vital’ Scot, it took an English, London-based art critic to remind us of Melville’s genius. Reviewing the Glasgow boys exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2010 in the Evening Standard, Brian Sewell wrote about the richness of Melville’s work which he found ‘quite astonishing’.... Read more -
John McLean
Another Light: Prairie Journey 6 - 26 Sep 2013 In 1981 I was thrilled to be asked as guest artist to the Emma Lake workshop in Saskatchewan. The place had become legendary. Artists preceding me included John Cage, Barnett Newman and Anthony Caro, whose Emma series was begun there. It was my first visit to Canada. I knew little... Read more -
Scottishness in Art
1750-1980 5 Jul - 7 Sep 2013 The eighteenth century saw Scotland take a giant step forward. It opened trade with English colonies and saw Scotland rise culturally, socially and economically. It was against this backdrop that Allan Ramsay (1713-1784) rose as a painter to the highest levels of European success. Ramsay set up a phenomenally successful... Read more -
James Cowie RSA
1886-1956 19 Apr - 18 May 2013 James Cowie was an outsider. He stood apart from the dominant mood of the pre and post war years and dismissed the colourful, expressive style that his contemporaries embraced. Instead, he pursued the intellectual and classical. He founded his work on meticulous preparatory drawing from which emerged complex compositions laden... Read more -
Whistler On The Thames
An Exhibition of Etchings and Lithotints 17 Apr - 9 May 2013 The idea for this exhibition grew from the extraordinary etchings Whistler made in the late summer of 1859. The idea of the exhibition arose from him arriving in London, charged with Realist zeal inhaled in Paris, and taking lodgings in a rough, working class district of London. In Wapping he... Read more -
Scottish Pictures of the Twentieth Century
15 Feb - 16 Mar 2013 With work by E A Hornel, Sir D Y Cameron, S J Peploe, Anne Redpath, Sir William Gillies, A R Sturrock, William Wilson, Sir W O Hutchison, Alberto Morrocco, Robert Henderson Blyth, Joan Eardley, Elizabeth Blackadder, John Byrne and John Boyd. Read more -
British Murals and Decorative Paintings 1910-1970
14 Feb - 9 Mar 2013 As a consequence of remaining out of the public domain murals often end up being written out of the accounts of the lives of the artists who created them - not withstanding the fact that for sheer size and scale it might be assumed that they were amongst the most... Read more -
Carving in Britain
From 1910 To Now 3 Dec 2012 - 12 Jan 2013 Although by no means an exhaustive survey of British carving of the last hundred years – exhibition space and availability of works dictated that - Carving in Britain was for many an introduction to a field that has attracted renewed interest in the last decade. It is possible to construct... Read more -
George Clausen and the Picture of English Rural Life
10 Oct - 8 Nov 2012 In 1979, to coincide with the Royal Academy’s Post- Impressionism exhibition and anticipate the large Sir George Clausen touring show, The Fine Art Society staged The Rustic Image, an exhibition surveying rural themes in British Painting. Of the eighty pictures by forty-two artists represented, nine were by Clausen. Not only... Read more -
Sir Peter Blake
Things I Love at The Fine Art Society 20 Jul - 1 Sep 2012 In 2012 The Fine Art Society proudly announced Things I Love At The Fine Art Society, an exhibition curated by Sir Peter Blake R.A. Opening the week before the Olympic and Paralympics games, the exhibition was a celebration of London and the artists who have lived and worked in the... Read more -
Twelve Scottish Paintings
22 Jun - 21 Jul 2012 Twelve paintings by Scottish artists spanning three centuries of art history. With work by Allan Ramsay, Jacob More, Sir David Wilkie, Alexander Fraser Snr, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Sam Bough, Sir David Murray, Patrick William Adam, F C B Cadell, John Maclauchlan Milne, Anne Redpath, James McIntosh Patrick. Read more -
Frank Dobson 1886-1963
20 Jun - 7 Jul 2012 Frank Dobson was born in Acton Street, St Pancras, London on 18 November 1886. His father was a commercial artist, and young Frank was introduced to the technical aspects of painting at an early age. His father also fostered in him a love and respect for fine art by taking... Read more -
Samuel Palmer
His Friends and Followers 30 May - 22 Jun 2012 The landscape has a fundamental place in British art. During the earlier nineteenth century it inspired the greatest British artists to paint what they saw and experienced outside their studios in England and elsewhere: Turner, Constable, Bonington, David Roberts and John Linnell. Unlike such artists, Palmer approached landscape not in... Read more -
John Piper 1903-1992
30 May - 22 Jun 2012 John Piper (1903–1992) was an important and distinctive figure in modern British art in a long career that spanned seven decades, from the 1920s through to the 1980s. Throughout this time he was constantly evolving and changing and refining the nature of his style, and the trajectory he followed was... Read more -
The Edwardians
The Golden Years Before The War 7 Dec 2011 - 7 Jan 2012 The Edwardians featured work by artists working from the turn of the century and into the first years of the First World War. Highlights included 'In the Orchard', a watercolour of c.1908 by Dame Laura Knight, a clear expression of the 'joie de vivre' which the artist confessed on moving... Read more -
Augustus Welby Pugin
Objects and Designs 7 Dec 2011 - 7 Jan 2012 A.W.N. Pugin: Objects and Designs was a selling exhibition held in association with Haslam and Whiteway of Kensington Church Street, London, of furniture, objects and designs by architect and designer, A.W.N.Pugin. The exhibiton included a spectacular Corona from the Bishop's House, Birmingham (1840), a Candlestick bearing the arms of William... Read more -
Gerald Leslie Brockhurst
Paintings, Prints and Drawings 6 Nov - 30 Dec 2011 Gerald Leslie Brockhurst: Paintings, Prints and Drawings was held to mark twenty-five years since the first comprehensive exhibition of the work of Gerald Brockhurst, A Dream of Fair Women, which toured Sheffield, Birmingham and the National Portrait Gallery in London. As a painter, draughtsman and etcher, Brockhurst achieved an extraordinary... Read more -
Talbert McLean
28 Oct - 19 Nov 2011 An exhibition of work by pioneering Scottish abstract artist Talbert McLean, shown alongside works by his son, John. Talbert's work is in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Dundee Art Gallery, Glasgow Museums and The Hunterian. “There are those painters who take starting points at odds... Read more -
Five Centuries of Scottish Portraiture
30 Jul - 3 Sep 2011 Portraits are windows into the period in which in they were painted – not merely because they demonstrate the painting techniques of the time, the fashions of art or of clothing, but because they show us how we saw ourselves. In the seventeenth or eighteenth century, we appeared as precise... Read more -
The Camden Town Group
Centenary Exhibition 15 Jun - 21 Jul 2011 A centenary exhibition of The Camden Town Group which opened exactly 100 years to the day of the groups' original exhibition in Fitzroy Street in 1911. The show consisted of around seventy pictures by Walter Sickert, Robert Bevan, Malcolm Drummond, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner, William Ratcliffe and many others. It... Read more -
Harvey to Houston
Scottish Painting 20 May - 18 Jun 2011 This exhibition included work by a number of important names in Scottish Art from the nineteenth and twentieth century; from the genre painter Sir George Harvey to the work of John Houston in the 1970s. Waller Hugh Paton's atmospheric and monumental painting of the Quiraing on Skye and Sir D... Read more -
Oscar Marzaroli
Photography 1959-1968 5 - 27 Nov 2010 From the 19th century Glasgow has been a city of momentous change and expansion. As the second city of the empire its population grew exponentially following the growth of industry and trade. As it enlarged the living conditions of the city’s workers shrank. Dire poverty and disease proliferated to the... Read more -
Lavery and The Glasgow Boys
7 Apr - 8 May 2010 No one quite understood why art should flourish in grimy Glasgow at the turn of the twentieth century. Even in eulogies on the ‘second city of the Empire’ there was a sense of wonder at how this could be – how a group of painters known as the Glasgow School... Read more -
John McLean
Sculpture from Painting 5 Mar - 1 Apr 2010 Making sculpture is more an impulse than an idea for me; but writing about the work might make it seem more rational than instinctive. An artist’s intentions are multiplex and hard to pin down. And even when they can be clearly articulated they are not necessarily relevant. Ideally no one... Read more -
Ten Paintings by S. J. Peploe
3 Mar - 10 Apr 2010 Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935) is one of the great names of Scottish painting - he ranks alongside Ramsay, Raeburn, Wilkie and McTaggart. The Fine Art Society have long championed Peploe and the Colourists. We had three exhibitions devoted to their work in the 1970s. In his 1924 introduction to the... Read more
