Collection: National Galleries of Scotland

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The Collection

  NGS is the custodian of one of the world’s finest collections of Scottish and international art, dating from around 1300 to the present day. There are some 130,000 objects, embracing many media from paintings, sculpture, drawing, prints, photography, film, digital, installation, sound, and performance. In addition, NGS has a substantial archive and library, including a world class collection of 6,000 artists’ and special books. There are 143 archival holdings to date, including unique documents, correspondence, audio-visual recordings, sketchbooks, textiles, photographs, artists’ tools, and born digital materials.
  The Collection can be considered to comprise five primary, inter-linking categories: European and Scottish Art, Portraiture, Modern and Contemporary Art and Photography supported by extensive Archives and library materials.

  European and Scottish Art

  This area of the collection features primarily European and Scottish paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture from c.1300 to c.1900. It is numerically dominated by works of the Scottish school (c.50% of the paintings and c.60% of the drawings). The other major schools represented are Italian; Netherlandish, Dutch and Flemish; Spanish; French and English with especially strong representation in sixteenth-century Venetian, seventeenth-century Dutch, and French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. The collection also incorporates small numbers of works from other artistic schools, such as Scandinavian, German and American paintings. Whilst for the Scottish school we aim to build comprehensive coverage, for our European works we look to represent highlights from the history of art.

  Portraiture

  Dating from the sixteenth century to the present day, this aspect of the collection, is a unique document of Scottish historical, contemporary and artistic practice via the lens of portraiture comprising paintings, portrait miniatures, prints, photographs, drawings, sculpture and digital media. It celebrates the evolution of the art of portraiture in Scotland, as well as including significant works by some of the most important artists in the history of European portraiture. In addition to formal portraiture, the collection features landscapes and historical scenes, offering records of notable Scottish places and events.

  Modern and Contemporary Art

  Modern and Contemporary Art consists of Scottish and international works of art in all media from c.1900 to the present day. A modern and contemporary collection was established in 1960 with the intention of providing a representative introduction to European modern art, and as the natural home for Scottish modern and contemporary art. The collection has world-class holdings in Dada and Surrealism, German Expressionism, and modern British art, and a comprehensive collection of modern and contemporary Scottish works. The collection includes an extensive and internationally significant library, archive and special books collection. In 2008, the international collection of modern and contemporary art was transformed through the acquisition of the ARTIST ROOMS collection, owned and managed jointly with Tate.

  Photography

  Photography has its nucleus in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery on the basis of the original holding of around 5,000 photographs by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, taken between 1843 and 1847. Since then, the Photography Collection has increased from 5,000 to around 40,000 works. The NGS has a remit to acquire photography as an art form to demonstrate the excellence of the principal artists in the field. The drive is largely Scottish, in a wide sense, designed to include photographs by people born in Scotland but living elsewhere, living in Scotland or visiting Scotland to make significant work. Since 1980 the NGS has acquired photography relating to contemporary practice.

  Archive and Library

  The NGS Archive and Library reflects the scope of the wider NGS collections, while also maintaining a focus on artists’ archives and the book as an art form.
  Until recently, each of the NGS sites maintained its own discrete reference library to support research into the collections. Taken together these form a national art library numbering some 150,000 items covering the history and practice of art from 1300 to the present.
  The archive has its origin in the establishment of the modern and contemporary collections in 1960 and was further expanded in the 1990s with major acquisitions of primary materials relating to Dada and Surrealism, and art and artists in Scotland, including the Richard Demarco, Eduardo Paolozzi and Ian Hamilton Finlay archives. Collecting is therefore focused on, but not limited to, art and artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. This area of the collection also includes around 6,000 artists’ and special books, from early examples by William Blake, to 20th century masterpieces by Matisse and Goncharova, and examples of artists’ books in contemporary practice.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date:

  Licence: CC BY-NC