The Fine Art Society

Kenny Hunter’s exhibition, ‘Let’s Forget’, is now open at The Fine Art Society.
View it in our Edinburgh gallery until 30 August or on our website at the link in our profile.

Meet us at the this weekend. We are at stand 12.

Amongst the artists on show we have John Byrne, D Y Cameron, William Crosbie, Pat Douthwaite, Kenny Hunter, Gerald Laing, Iain Macnab, John Maclauchlan Milne, John McLean and more.

And we won the Best Curated Stand prize!

Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea
Thursday 26th: 11am - 9pm
Friday 27th: 11am - 9pm
Saturday 28th: 11am - 6pm
Sunday 29th: 11am - 5pm

Gerald Laing – Myth & Muse
The Cult of Celebrity
now open in our Edinburgh gallery until 31 August

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 Pop image, Anna Karina, 1962, was painted while he was a student at St Martin’s School of Art. It was followed by Lincoln Convertible, 1963-64, created shortly after Laing’s return to the UK from the US during which time JFK was assassinated. During the 1970s Laing created a series of bronzes of his wife, Galina Vassilovna Golikova, as a model and muse.

In the early years of the 21st century, his interest in the mass media imagery was stirred again, and the lives of Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse were committed to canvas. As he did in the 60s and 70s, his technique depersonalises the subject and, by the end, renders them as remote as they were originally.

view the exhibition online at the link in our profile

This June we will be part of the second edition of in Edinburgh from 7-30 June with the exhibition ‘Gerald Laing: Myth & Muse - the cult of celebrity’.

New Town Art Month is a month-long festival which celebrates the independent art galleries of Edinburgh’s New Town. The festival launches next Thursday 6th June, 6pm-8:30pm. RSVP at the link in our bio.

Thank you all who came last night to the launch of Bill Hare’s new book ‘Scottish Art and Artists in Historical and Contemporary Context’, a collection of essays and commentaries on the artists of post-war Scotland.

The book is available to purchase from here:
https://www.luath.co.uk/product/scottish-art-and-artists-in-historical-and-contemporary-context

For those who came to the talk, the video mentioned at the end featuring Bill’s interview to Sandy Moffat, can be found on the Friends of Edinburgh University Visual Arts page, at the link below:
https://youtu.be/iO4sw1rlCTM

Art & Design 1950-2000 now open until 1st June.
Visit us in person or see the exhibition online and in our online shop.

Join us in the gallery this week, on Thursday 18th & Friday 19th April, for a sale of books, prints, small pictures and frames.
In person only, no reserves, no price list available.

At 6 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, 18th & 19th April, 10am-6pm.

Another corner of our gallery, part of the exhibition ‘Art & Design 1850-1950’.

In front of Ben Nicholson’s ‘Princess Textile’ (1946) are a steel and oak Typing desk designed in 1934 Wells Coates for PEL – Practical Equipment Ltd and a leather and tubular steel chair, also made by PEL.
On the desk, a Mary Adshead drawing (‘An Accident’, 1930) is lit by an original 1227 Anglepoise lamp designed in 1932 by George Carwardine.

Carwardine was an automotive engineer. In 1932 he was working on a new concept for the vehicle suspension system when he noticed that the spring mechanism he had just invented could be applied in other fields. Used in a task lamp, the springs would allow the pivoting arms to be positioned at any angle with the lightest touch. In 1934 he partnered with Herbert Terry and Sons who would manufacture and market the lamp. Since then, the Terry family have continued to oversee the Anglepoise style evolution for the last eight decades.

“A Culinary Map of Great Britain”

In 1937 Mary Adshead (1904-1995) was commissioned by architect friend Oliver Hill a pictorial map for the restaurant of the British Pavilion at the 1937 Exposition Universale in Paris. The map shows over fifty traditional culinary specialties from different parts of Britain. It was painted on glass but the panel broke in transit. Only this annotated preparatory drawing remains. Adshead painted various other panels and murals for the British Pavilion.