Collection: Royal Scottish Academy

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture has a wide-ranging collection of art and associated objects that have been acquired since the academy’s foundation in 1826. This reflects both the life and work of the academy as an institution and its individual members as well as a broader view of Scottish art from c.1780 to the present day. This description of the current collections is divided into the following sub-sections:

  1. Paintings and Drawings
  2. Sculptures
  3. Architectural Drawings, Models, etc
  4. Prints,and Folios
  5. Artist Books and Sketchbooks
  6. Photography
  7. Time-based media (sound, video, performance-based documentation)
  8. Installation, Assemblage and Multi-part works
  9. Associated Objects

  Each will be described individually, and this is followed by a second breakdown of the collections according to acquisition method due to its highly specific nature in certain instances.

  Paintings and Drawings

  At the time of writing, the Paintings and Drawings collection of the Royal Scottish Academy numbers around 4,500 items.

  With the exception of the 1,000+ David Laing Bequest Old Master drawings (currently on long term loan to the National Galleries of Scotland), this almost entirely consists of the work of Scottish artists or non-Scottish artists resident in Scotland. Within the parameter of Scottish material, the earliest pieces date from around 1780 and the most recent from the present day. Being an institutional collection the artists represented are primarily past and present members of the Academy. Additionally artists in receipt of RSA training, scholarships or awards (see APPENDIX I) are represented by examples of their work. Furthermore certain Scottish artists who were/are not members of the Royal Scottish Academy are also represented in the collections where their association with this institution (or certain of its members) is particularly strong. This final category is most relevant in the earliest period of the collection, ie. 1780-1826, which predates the foundation of the RSA. For example the large canvas, The Disobedient Prophet, by John Graham (1754-1817) and a cluster of works by David Allan (1744-1796) showcase the work of artists who were the teachers of the first generation of members of the Academy and thus serve to introduce a thread of connections through teaching, which is a significant aspect of the overall collection. The main collecting period, however, is from 1826 to the present day, ie. the lifetime of the Academy. A significant number of major Scottish artists are represented, some by individual iconic works, such as James Guthrie RSA (1859-1930) with Midsummer (1892), Samuel John Peploe RSA (1871-1935) with Boy Reading (c.1921) and Beth Fisher RSA (b.1944) with her important drawing, Burial II (2006). Other artists are represented by significant holdings, for example William Darling McKay RSA (1844-1924), John Duncan RSA (1866-1945), William Gillies RSA (1898-1973), James Cumming RSA (1922-1991), William Littlejohn RSA (1929-2006) and David Michie RSA (1928-2015). In many instances and especially in the case of the studio gifts of Gillies, Cumming, Littlejohn and Michie, groups of paintings are supported by extensive collections of sketchbooks, studies and preparatory sketches, and this is a particular strength of the RSA collections.

  In addition to Scottish material there is a small group of paintings and drawings by non-Scots, and this covers the period from c.1600 to the present day. However, these maintain a direct association to the RSA as an institution or to one or more of its members. For example the full-size cartoon, St George, by Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869) was gifted to the Academy by William B Johnstone RSA (1804-1868) in 1853, it coming from his personal collection. This drawing, an example of the work of one of the leading Nazarene painters, represents the influence of this German group of artists on Scottish work in the middle years of the nineteenth century.

  In 2014 a major collection of Scottish drawings was returned to the Royal Scottish Academy from the National Galleries of Scotland. Including work by David Octavius Hill RSA (1802-1870), Thomas Duncan RSA (1807-1845), Montague Stanley ARSA (1809-1844), William Allan RSA (1782-1850), James Howe (1780-1836) and Francis Grose (1731-1791) this collection forms part of the David Laing HRSA (1793-1878) Bequest of drawings (1879). The return of this group from the bequest allowed the Royal Scottish Academy to formalise a new long-term loan agreement to the National Galleries of Scotland for the important collection of Old Master drawings that form the remainder of the Laing Bequest.

  In 2017 the RSA – Edinburgh University Life School Transfer secured the return of twenty six paintings and drawings from the RSA’s Life School, which operated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A group of some forty works from the RSA Life School had been left at Edinburgh College of Art from the school’s late tenancy there prior to its winding up in 1932. Following research and discussion with Edinburgh University, the collection was split, with the RSA taking the majority including work by Robert Brough ARSA (1872-1905), Samuel John Peploe RSA (1871-1935) and Sir James Lawton Wingate PPRSA (1846-1924). The transfer is yet to be completed, with other works expected in future.

  A group of three significant portrait paintings by, David Allan (1744-1796), Robert Duddingstone Herdman ARSA (1863-1922) and James Norie Snr (1684-1757) are on long-term loan to the National Galleries of Scotland.

  Sculptures

  There are around 250 pieces in the RSA sculpture collection. The main body of work is by Scottish sculptors, working either at home or abroad. Being an institutional collection the sculptors represented are primarily past and present members of the Academy. The earliest acquisition (1831) is a marble bust of David Scott SA by John Steell RSA (1804-1891). Thereafter important individual works by significant Scottish sculptors including Samuel Joseph RSA (1791-1850), James Pittendrigh MacGillivray RSA (1856-1938), Alexander Carrick RSA (1882-1966), Benno Schotz RSA (1891-1984), Thomas Whalen RSA (1903-1975), Phyllis Bone RSA (1899-1972), Anne Henderson RSA (1921-76), Fred Bushe RSA (1931-2009), Marion Smith RSA (b.1969), Fiona Dean RSA (b.1962) and Annie Cattrell RSA (b.1962). Although many pieces are portrait busts, this collection contains a wide range of sculpture types from relief work to complex pieces in a range of media, and also abstract and constructed work. Subjects range from landscape-inspired work to classicising figures, from narrative-based pieces to animals. In 2017, the sculptor Kenny Hunter RSA (b.1962) was commissioned to sculpt a posthumous President’s Portrait of James Guthrie PPRSA. This filled a gap and brought up to date the existing collection of President’s Portraits, which includes work in two and three dimensions.

  In addition the academy has acquired a few pieces by non-Scottish or non-Scottish based sculptors, yet with connections to the RSA through provenance for example Post equitem sedet altra cura by Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854-1934) and two animalier bronzes Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875).

  In 2015 the RSA received a significant studio gift from the estate of the sculptor Keith Rand RSA (1956-2013). This was the first studio gift from a sculptor to enter the collections and contains large, medium and small scale sculpture, maquettes, sketchbooks, drawings and sketches, tools and equipment and a substantial archive. Like many of the artistic legacy gifts to the RSA, there is an ongoing relationship with the artist’s executors and material continued to be received up to 2019.

  A group of five significant portrait busts by, William Brodie RSA (1815-81), John Hutchison RSA (1833-1910), George Anderson Lawson HRSA (1832-1904), Patric Park RSA (1811-55) and John Steell RSA (1804-91) are on long- term loan to the National Galleries of Scotland.

  Architectural Drawings, Models, etc

  There are around 100 items in this category, split between architectural drawings, models and presentational assemblages of photographs and/or computer-generated images. The raison d’être behind this collection is to present excellent examples of architectural practice by Scottish architects and, being an institutional collection the figures represented are primarily past and present members of the Academy. The earliest acquisitions (1831) are drawings of Edinburgh buildings by William Henry Playfair RSA (1789-1857) and Thomas Hamilton RSA (1784-1858). Thereafter architectural practice is represented through the nineteenth century to the present day and includes such significant names as David Bryce RSA (1803-1876), Robert Stodart Lorimer RSA (1864-1929), James Miller RSA (1860-1947), Isi Metzstein RSA (b.1928), James Morris RSA (1931-2006) and Robert Steedman RSA (b.1929), Richard Murphy RSA (b.1955), Neil Gillespie RSA (b.1954), and Kathryn Findlay RSA (1953-2014). Although most constructions represented are Scottish, this is not universally so, for example Joseph Gleave RSA, Sketches for a Proposed Monument to Columbus (c.1930-1959) and Kathryn Findlay RSA, Model for Art Foundation, Qatar (2011)

  In 2014 the RSA received a Diploma Work from John McAslan RSA (b.1954), which documents the design and construction of his major project at King’s Cross Station in London. The work consists of an architectural model, framed presentation drawing and a photographic, digital and library archive detailing plans and stages of construction. It is the first architectural Diploma Work to be presented as a project archive. The following year, the Diploma Work of Neil Gillespie, Pier Arts Centre, also broke new architectural ground with its inclusion of Gillespie’s own ideas sketchbook with the concept model for the project

  In 2015 the RSA received an important gift from the estate of Peter Womersley ARSA (1923-1993). The first architectural studio gift to enter the collections, it contains plans, drawings, photographs and an archive that spans Womersley’s career.

  Prints and Folios

  The Academy’s print collection numbers around 2,500 items. This covers a very broad range: in date terms it extends from c.1650 to the present day; and in nationality terms it includes Scottish, British and foreign work. It may be broken down into the following categories

  1. Scottish work representing the best art printmaking practice from c.1780 to the present day. For example this includes historically important etchings by Alexander Runciman (1736-1785) and John Kay (1742-1826). Significant current printmaking work is represented by both specialist artist-printmakers such as Willie Rodger RSA (b.1930), Frances Walker RSA (b.1930), Phillip Reeves RSA (b.1931), John MacKechnie RSA (b.1949) and Elspeth Lamb RSA (b.1951), emerging artist-printmakers, such as Ibraheem Adeyemi Adesina (b. 1980) and also by artists working in collaboration with artists’ printers, for example Elizabeth Blackadder RSA (b.1931) and Ian McCulloch RSA (b.1935).

  In 2017 a major studio gift was received from the printmaker Philip Reeves RSA. Some forty of the artist’s collages and the full catalogue of prints held by the artist at his death have been accessioned into the collections. The gift also contains sketchbooks, artist equipment and an archive. From one major Scottish printmaker to another, this was followed up by a significant gift from the estate of Willie Rodger RSA in 2020. Alongside Beth Fisher RSA Rodger was the first Academician to be elected as a printmaker in 1989.

  1. British prints c.1750-1930, particularly engravings and mezzotints executed as copies of original paintings, also similar etchings and chromolithographs. These were acquired primarily as a reference and teaching collection (see APPENDIX I). Additionally a small number of British (ie non-Scottish) prints by specialist practitioners such as Frank Brangwyn HRSA (1867-1956).
  2. Non-British prints of all periods and from anywhere in the world, This category appears random but it represents items collected by individual Scottish artists as part of their personal and professional development and can be identified as informing their work. For example a collection of figure studies by Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) acquired by William Gillies RSA.
  3. Print folios, in both bound and unbound format connect collections to library holdings. Important publications by the likes of Robert Bryden cross between these areas and the collections include folios by David WIlkie HRSA and Frank Brangwyn HRSA (1867-1956) amongst others. Recent acquisitions, such as A Night of Islands by Will Maclean RSA mark a renewed interest in filling gaps in the collections of important folios from the latter half of the twentieth century to balance the strength of the nineteenth and early twentieth century print holdings.

  Artist Books and Sketchbooks

  1. Contemporary artist Books is a recently resurging category and currently numbers around 20 items. Pieces range from those by living members, eg Crossing to Finlaggan (2003) by Frances Walker RSA (b.1930) and works by young artists in receipt of RSA administered scholarships and awards, such as Geri Loup Nolan (b. 1961). This category represents a contemporary return to an area of considerable quality and depth established during the development of the RSA library in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. During this period rare publications and volumes containing original print works and artworks, by the likes of John Baptist Jackson (1701-73), Patrick Syme RSA (1774-1845), David Scott RSA (1806-49), Kenneth Macleay RSA (1802-78), David Octavius Hill RSA (1802-70) among many others, were acquired through gift and purchase. This category crosses over with prints and folios at 2.4 and signals a revisiting of themes and material from the Royal Scottish Academy’s collecting history.
  2. Sketchbooks are a key component of the collections and define an area of particular strength in revealing artist practice from behind the façade of the finished artwork. The collections hold sketchbooks from nineteenth century artists including David Allan (1744-96), Robert McGregor RSA (1847-1922), Patrick Gibson RSA (1782-1829), Samuel Bough RSA (1822-78) and Arthur Perigal RSA (1816-84), and into the twentieth century with William Crozier ARSA (1897-1930), John Duncan RSA (1866-1945) and Michael Docherty RSA (b.1947). The Crozier sketchbooks entered the collections with the William Gillies RSA bequest in 1973 with sketchbooks by Gillies himself, and the majority of sketchbooks in the collections have been accessioned as part of the major studio gifts that have been received since this point. Groups of sketchbooks by James Miller RSA [4], James Cumming RSA (1922-91) [12], Fred Bushe RSA (1931-2009) [4], William Littlejohn RSA (1929-2006) [35], Keith Rand RSA (1956-2013) [107], David Michie RSA (1928-2015) [130] and Philip Reeves RSA (1931-2017) [29] have been received as part of studio gifts.

  Photography

  This section falls into two categories, 1) Art photographs, and 2) Documentary photographs

  1. Art photographs, produced solely or primarily for aesthetic ends, number around 400 in the Academy’s collection and they fall into two main groups: very early and recent.

  In 1852 the RSA launched a Photographic Department and began an active phase of acquisition which lasted until around 1860. As a result there are important examples of the work of Scottish and French photographers who were active in this period, such as the Hill & Adamson Partnership (1842-48), Dr Thomas Keith (1827-1895), John Stewart of Pau (1814-1887), Gustave Le Gray (1820-1887) and Charles Nègre (1802-1880).

  Collecting art photography resumed at the end of the twentieth century, the “recent” section, with significant work such as Venus Anadyomene (1998) by Calum Colvin RSA (b.1961) and photographs from The River Forth Series, which form Thomas Joshua Cooper RSA’s (b.1946) Diploma Work. Recent growth in this category has come predominantly from artists in receipt of Scholarships, Awards or Residencies and includes work by Philip Braham (b.1959), Alicia Bruce (b.1979), James Dixon (b. 1980) and Alex Boyd (b. 1984).

  2. Documentary photographs number around 1,800 in the academy’s collection and these date from c.1853/4 (collection of artists portraits by James Good Tunny, 1820-1887) to the present day. The items in this section record the history of the RSA as an institution, Scottish artists and artist life, and also working studio practice by Scottish artists. For example there are photographs and negatives of RSA annual exhibitions from as early as 1860, photographs of the RSA Life School from the 1880s and 1890s, research photographs taken by working artists, eg William Gillies RSA’s photographs of the Highlands taken in the 1930s and similar ones taken by Ian Fleming RSA (1906-1994) of harbours in North East Scotland in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to those by William Gillies, the studio gifts of Keith Rand RSA and David Michie RSA contain much documentary photography.

  Time-based Media

  This is a small but growing category and items represent diverse contemporary practice. It covers recorded sound, video and performance-based documentation by Scottish artists or artists working in Scotland, eg. Leena Nammari’s film everyanysomenowhere (b.1970, recipient of the Morton Award 2007), Paul Rooney’s film Kendal Iconoclasm (b.1967, recipient of the Morton Award 2011), Katri Walker’s film Rapture (b.1978, recipient of an RSA Residency for Scotland, 2011), Sylvia Law’s sound pieces Florence: Site Recordings and Florence: My Recordings (b.1990, recipient of the RSA John Kinross Scholarship, 2012) and Rachael Bibby’s film Reflect (b. 1985, created in response to the collections works in RSA exhibition Ego, 2013)

  Installation, Assemblage and Multi-part works

  This is a small but growing category and items represent diverse contemporary artistic practice. It covers works that have multiple components and some that contain a variety of different object types. It includes work by Michael Docherty RSA (b. 1947), Edward Summerton RSA (b. 1962), Tracy Mackenna RSA (b. 1963) and Edwin Janssen and Mina Heydari-Waite (b.1990)

  In 2016 the first multi-media Diploma Work was received, with the deposit of Follower by Derrick Guild RSA (b.1963), which comprises a painting, a photograph and a filmed performance.

  Associated Objects

  This broad category breaks down into the following: 1) institutional memorabilia and personalia, 2) artists’ equipment and materials, 3) inspirational objects.

  1. Institutional memorabilia and personalia cover a mixed collection of around 160 items memorialising the academy and certain of its constituent members. The earliest items predate the Academy but retain a connection through the educational role of this institution, these being David Allan’s medals from the Academy of St Luke in Rome (1773). However in general the items represented in this category date from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present day and include: RSA medals belonging to past members, drinking glasses belonging to an artists’ club (The Smashers Club), a walking stick belonging to Samuel Bough RSA (1822-1878) and a silver cigar box memorialising Robert Lorimer RSA (1864-1929).
  2. Artists’ equipment and materials (otherwise defined as “studio” collections) comprise a mixed collection of around 200 items dating from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These items being the working tools of Scottish artists who have been members of the academy or otherwise associated with it and they range from an easel belonging to Sir James Guthrie RSA (1959-1930), to a paint-laden palette that belonged to Sir William MacTaggart RSA (1903-1981), to oriental paint brushes and stamps used by William Littlejohn RSA (1929-2006) and the hand-made wood carving tools made by Keith Rand RSA (1956-2013).
  3. Inspirational objects number some 200 items and all have belonged to Scottish artists who have been members of the Academy or otherwise associated with it. Most of the items date from the nineteenth century onwards but may come from anywhere in the world. For example in this category are a collection of cut glass decanters and stoppers used by James Cumming RSA (1922-1991) in his exploration of still life compositions, and there are pots made by Emma Gillies and used by her brother, William Gillies RSA (1898-1973), in his paintings. More inspirational objects have entered the collections via the studio gifts detailed in this document.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2020

  Licence: CC BY-NC