One of Scotland’s oldest commercial galleries is marking 150 years in business with a landmark exhibition spanning Victorian masters to contemporary artists.
The Fine Art Society, which first opened on Dundas Street in Edinburgh in 1876, will open its anniversary show on 13 June, running until August 31.
The exhibition brings together paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, textiles and design drawn from across the gallery’s history, from Pre-Raphaelite landscapes to contemporary ceramics.
One highlight is a collection of early etchings by James McNeill Whistler, the American-born artist credited with transforming the modern print market with his radical approach to display.
Also featured is a rare large-scale landscape by Pre-Raphaelite painter John Brett, whose precisely rendered Victorian vistas helped redefine the genre.
The show places particular emphasis on artists whose contributions have been historically overlooked. Clare Atwood’s 1953 painting The Terry Family, Four Generations sheds light on the intersection of theatre, modernism and queer history in early 20th-century Britain.
Atwood was the partner of theatre director Edith Craig, who staged more than 150 productions with the avant-garde Pioneer Players collective.
Scottish sculptor Phyllis Bone – best known for animal sculptures on war memorials and civic buildings – features alongside Anne Redpath, Betty Blandino and Ishbel Myerscough, whose monumental Kitchen Table is among the contemporary centrepieces.
A Gothic Revival table by Augustus Pugin, a tapestry by Gerald Laing and a rare textile by Edmund Dulac – which used to adorn the smoking room of the ocean liner Empress of Britain – reflect the gallery’s long-standing commitment to decorative arts and design.
The show closes with Philip Eglin’s colossal ceramic vessel Rosso (2024), recently shortlisted for the prestigious Loewe Foundation Craft Prize.
Managing Director Emily Walsh said: “This exhibition is a microcosm of our history: the Victorian era and its Scottish genre paintings and Romantic landscapes, Pre-Raphaelites and the Neo-Gothic, the Aesthetic Movement and Arts and Crafts sitting alongside Glasgow designers and British Impressionism; to the Scottish Colourists, Neo-Romanticism, Modernism and Pop Art.
“Intermingling throughout are living artists, borrowing from the past but making it new.
“As any longstanding company knows, to get to this grand age we have endured the vicissitudes of time.
“To be here, to tell our tale, is the result of a hard travelled journey. However, the artworks, the artists, the collectors and enthusiasts, the conservators, the framers and all those who contribute to our ecosystem, inspire and enrich.”
The Fine Art Society say their sesquicentennial exhibition displays their enduring commitment to rediscovery, scholarship and artistic risk-taking across generations.
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