Latest news with #DovecotStudios
Scotsman
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
The Scottish Colourists attract record visitors 100 years after their first exhibition
Record visitor numbers at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh this year highlight the power of popular exhibitions to attract audiences, support tourism, and even raise revenue. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... 2025 marks a century since the four Scottish Colourists, FCB Cadell, JD Fergusson, SJ Peploe, GL Hunter, widely recognised as Scotland's most pioneering artists of the early 20th century, exhibited together as a quartet for the first time in London. Dovecot's exhibition to mark this centenary shows the Colourists enduring appeal. With building visitors pegged at over 90,000 in the past 12 months, Dovecot has increased its annual pre-pandemic footfall by over 50%*. Celia Joicey, Director of Dovecot Studios says, We are absolutely thrilled by the phenomenal response to The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives exhibition — expert curation from the Fleming Collection, has attracted new audiences and supported deeper public engagement with the Colourists' work. Creating an exhibition programme with wide appeal, which includes forthcoming exhibitions on IKEA design and 20th century fashion, is crucial to our survival as a 21st century arts organisation and we are grateful to our visitors for its success. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Dovecot's increased footfall is distinctive. It has been recently reported that UK galleries are suffering from a decline in visitor numbers due to Brexit, the aftermath of Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis (I Paper, 2025; Art Plugged, 2025). By contrast, Dovecot's landmark show on The Scottish Colourists is now the most attended in the organisation's history, surpassing the highly successful Grayson Perry show in 2019. Dovecot Studios: The Scottish Colourists Bucking a slow start to the year for many museums and galleries, with a sector report citing visitors are still 10% down on pre- pandemic numbers (Association of Cultural Enterprise and Museum & Galleries Edinburgh, 2025), the exhibition has resonated with new and local visitors. 35% of those surveyed said they were first time visitors to the gallery. Dovecot cites the quality of its public programme and curating as a factor in this success. The exhibition places the Scottish Colourists alongside their European and UK contemporaries for the first time, challenging conventions around who should be considered the leading radical painters from 1905 to the outbreak of war in 1914. The exhibition is also supported by talks, events and workshops. James Knox, Exhibition Curator and a Director of the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation, says, The critical reassessment we've undertaken in this exhibition has allowed us to show these artists in a new light, demonstrating how their work remains deeply relevant today. It's inspiring to see these iconic Scottish artists being celebrated 100 years on since their first exhibition and how this international generation of radical painters forged a new language of colour in the early 20th Century. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Knox believes the appeal of the exhibition highlights the vital importance of championing Scottish art through fresh critical reassessment. For example, for the first time the exhibition sees the Colourists work shown alongside Fauve painters Henri Matisse and André Derain. Major institutional loans include Derain's renowned Fauvist work, Pool of London, lent by Tate, key works by Bloomsbury Group innovators Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, as well as major examples from Walter Sickert's more nuanced Camden Town Group. It also shows many Dovecot Studios: The Scottish Colourists works held in private collections not seen by the public before. Thanks to the support of so many lenders, The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives is an opportunity to mark a key moment in the ongoing revival of Scottish art, and its relevance on a global stage. Due to the higher-than-anticipated attendance to date, Dovecot Studios have extended the exhibition by a day, until Sunday 29 June 2025, to ensure as many visitors as possible have the opportunity to see the work of the Scottish Colourists displayed alongside their better-known European contemporaries. * 58,353 Dovecot building visitors 1 June – 31 May 2019 compared with 88,774 1 June 2024 – 31 May 2025 (i.e. 52% increase)
Scotsman
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
The Scottish Colourists attract record visitors 100 years after their first exhibition
Record visitor numbers at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh this year highlight the power of popular exhibitions to attract audiences, support tourism, and even raise revenue. Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... 2025 marks a century since the four Scottish Colourists, FCB Cadell, JD Fergusson, SJ Peploe, GL Hunter, widely recognised as Scotland's most pioneering artists of the early 20th century, exhibited together as a quartet for the first time in London. Dovecot's exhibition to mark this centenary shows the Colourists enduring appeal. With building visitors pegged at over 90,000 in the past 12 months, Dovecot has increased its annual pre-pandemic footfall by over 50%*. Celia Joicey, Director of Dovecot Studios says, We are absolutely thrilled by the phenomenal response to The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives exhibition — expert curation from the Fleming Collection, has attracted new audiences and supported deeper public engagement with the Colourists' work. Creating an exhibition programme with wide appeal, which includes forthcoming exhibitions on IKEA design and 20th century fashion, is crucial to our survival as a 21st century arts organisation and we are grateful to our visitors for its success. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Dovecot's increased footfall is distinctive. It has been recently reported that UK galleries are suffering from a decline in visitor numbers due to Brexit, the aftermath of Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis (I Paper, 2025; Art Plugged, 2025). By contrast, Dovecot's landmark show on The Scottish Colourists is now the most attended in the organisation's history, surpassing the highly successful Grayson Perry show in 2019. Dovecot Studios: The Scottish Colourists Bucking a slow start to the year for many museums and galleries, with a sector report citing visitors are still 10% down on pre- pandemic numbers (Association of Cultural Enterprise and Museum & Galleries Edinburgh, 2025), the exhibition has resonated with new and local visitors. 35% of those surveyed said they were first time visitors to the gallery. Dovecot cites the quality of its public programme and curating as a factor in this success. The exhibition places the Scottish Colourists alongside their European and UK contemporaries for the first time, challenging conventions around who should be considered the leading radical painters from 1905 to the outbreak of war in 1914. The exhibition is also supported by talks, events and workshops. James Knox, Exhibition Curator and a Director of the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation, says, The critical reassessment we've undertaken in this exhibition has allowed us to show these artists in a new light, demonstrating how their work remains deeply relevant today. It's inspiring to see these iconic Scottish artists being celebrated 100 years on since their first exhibition and how this international generation of radical painters forged a new language of colour in the early 20th Century. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Knox believes the appeal of the exhibition highlights the vital importance of championing Scottish art through fresh critical reassessment. For example, for the first time the exhibition sees the Colourists work shown alongside Fauve painters Henri Matisse and André Derain. Major institutional loans include Derain's renowned Fauvist work, Pool of London, lent by Tate, key works by Bloomsbury Group innovators Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, as well as major examples from Walter Sickert's more nuanced Camden Town Group. It also shows many Dovecot Studios: The Scottish Colourists works held in private collections not seen by the public before. Thanks to the support of so many lenders, The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives is an opportunity to mark a key moment in the ongoing revival of Scottish art, and its relevance on a global stage. Due to the higher-than-anticipated attendance to date, Dovecot Studios have extended the exhibition by a day, until Sunday 29 June 2025, to ensure as many visitors as possible have the opportunity to see the work of the Scottish Colourists displayed alongside their better-known European contemporaries.
The Herald Scotland
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Global celebration of gardens unveiled in Scotland
The exhibition, which opens to the public on Saturday, will look at places of sanctuary and cutting-edge garden creations around the world. Read more: Garden Futures: Designing with Nature, which runs until 25 January, will also explore how gardens have inspired fashion, artists, video games and advertising campaigns. The Maggie's cancer care centre in Dundee, seaweed gardens in Oban, Little Sparta, the garden created by artist Ian Hamilton Finlay and landscape designer Charles Jencks' Garden of Cosmic Speculation, near Dumfries, are showcased in the exhibition. The Maggie's cancer care centre in Dundee is featured in a new exhibition at the city's V&A design museum, which is celebrating garden creations around the world. (Image: V&A Dundee) The show also features Dior menswear inspired by the Charleston garden in Sussex, the former home of artist Derek Jarman in Kent, self-watering plant pots created by Scottish designers Andrew Flynn and Martin Keane, and a new tapestry commissioned for the exhibition from Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. V&A Dundee director Leonie Bell said: 'Gardens are both everyday and extraordinary – they mean something different to everyone. A new tapestry was commissioned by V&A Dundee from Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh for its new exhibition Garden Futures: Designing With Nature. (Image: Phil Wilkinson) "These designed spaces reflect the times we live in and express our relationship with nature. Some are productive spaces for work, rest and play, while others represent profound spiritual, cultural and political ideas. "This vibrant exhibition blooms with design stories of gardens from Scotland and around the world, unearthing different approaches to creating the 'perfect' garden. "It looks back to early earthly ideas of paradise and considers how gardening can cultivate a greener, fairer and more joyful future for humans and nature alike. "Whether you're a seasoned gardener or you've never grown anything in your life, the exhibition offers a thought-provoking experience, providing moments of sanctuary and creative inspiration within its stunning design."
Spectator
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Why were the Scots so much better at painting than the English?
This exhibition is awash with luscious brushstrokes, but then that's to be expected: it's full of Scottish painting. Before the barren era of conceptual art, which most hope is over, people often observed that the Scots could paint while the English could draw. Why is a bit of mystery, but it was true right through the 18th and 19th centuries and well into the 20th. The Dovecot Studios exhibition opens with John Duncan Fergusson's portrait of his lover and first muse, Jean Maconochie, painted about 1902. It's a fabulous eyeful of brush marks. Her pale pink, oval face nestles under her black billowing locks, flanked by two glowing pearls dropping from her ears, the whole moony ensemble bathed in the deep green of her hat, scarf and coat as if she was emerging, miraculously, from a dark, verdant night. But what takes your breath away are the brush marks that swim through this surrounding darkness and then become finer as they shape – a better word would be stroke – her cheeks, chin, nose and the arch of her brows above rounded eyes, caresses that culminate in her pouting lips that are held aloof but at the same time appear ready to be kissed. This is painting, brush-bending, as a hymn to flesh on bone, love-making lifted out of time. The second painting in this show, however, is an oddity. It's 'Self-portrait in a Turban' (1910) by Duncan Grant who, though a Scot, had nothing to do with the Scottish colourists. Nor is it painterly, but rather drawn and dry in technique. Grant worked in London, and was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. What the painting is really about is anyone's guess. He has depicted himself, or rather his top half, naked, wearing only a turban, which could just as easily be a bath towel, that echoes the colour of his pale blue eyes. His right hand is held aloft in a fay, come-hither gesture, as if inviting the spectator to strip and join him in his Turkish bath. Looking at this picture I couldn't resist remembering the nickname given to him later by his intimates in the Bloomsbury Group: Drunk-And-Can't. Why ever was this included in the show? The exhibition is promoted as being a 'first time showcase of the Scottish Colourists in the context of their European contemporaries'. I was looking forward to seeing how well the paintings of the four Scottish colourists, Fergusson, Peploe, Hunter and Cadell, held up beside the works of Van Gogh, Cézanne, Matisse and Derain. There is a fine Derain, but only one scrappy, utterly untypical pen-and-ink study by Matisse, and no Van Gogh nor Cézanne. But there are a host of works by the largely English Bloomsbury and Fitzroy Street groups and a sprinkling of Welsh and Irish artists, which makes the exhibition international in a way (if you're a Scottish nationalist). Hence, perhaps, the prominence of Duncan Grant at the entrance – a Scot who emigrated to the South. All the artists included were influenced by the explosion of post-impressionism in France – but the results of their efforts were very different and these tend to cloud the distinct achievements of the four Scottish colourists themselves. Nevertheless, oil painting, when done as well as this, is wonderful to witness. Loaded brush marks, as they dip, run, shift and lift, follow the flow of the painter's vision. As you look at these paintings you can see the artists seeing, join them, as it were, behind their eyes. Cadell, the youngest of the four, emerges as the finest talent. His portrait of the boxer, 'Basher Willie' Thompson, sitting naked on a bright vermillion chair, his weathered, roseate face and hands in startling contrast to his white, usually covered flesh. The exhibition begins with the Scottish colourists' dark early, Edwardian still-lives – glints of light on silver sugar bowls and flowers in a vase – then moves on to their French-inspired works, tumbles of oranges, crumpled bright fabrics and bottles of red wine, but it ends with their late paintings of the Scottish landscape, above all the turquoise-green seas, rose-tinted beaches and blue mountains of the Hebridean islands. These are the most light-filled, colour-saturated and uplifting paintings in the show. One has to wonder how these artists might have fared if they'd never left home. The rare, luminous, ever-changing beauty of their native landscape could have become synonymous with the Scottish colourists. But as it is their works remain, for the most part, just one more, albeit bright, eddy on the edges of post-impressionism.
The National
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Edinburgh to host world's biggest card game championship
The non-profit Null Signal Games is now in talks with Dovecot Studios to expand capacity to fit the legion of gamers keen to visit Scotland's capital from October 17 to 19. Android: Netrunner was a card game produced by Fantasy Flight Games between 2012 and 2018 but their licensing agreement on the IP expired. A group of volunteers and engaged fans took up the game's mantle and have been successfully running tournaments and releasing new content as Null Signal Games, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the continuation and management of the game. READ MORE: John Swinney urged to put 'country before party' and join Independence Summit Null Signal Games' organised play manager, Jeff Pruyne, said: 'This is our fourth in-person world since the pandemic, and it's on track to be the largest gathering of Netrunner players ever. 'We've been expanding the event every year, and we're excited to offer learn-to-play events on Sunday, along with support for all kinds of involvement, including cosplay, trivia and alternative formats.' Netrunner is an asymmetrical duel where one player takes on the role of a nefarious corporation determined to advance their agenda, and one player acts as the Runner, a hacker who is trying to stop them from controlling or destroying the world. Mike Prosser, a player from Glasgow who has been part of the community since 2015, said that the model of the game made it more accessible to him in the beginning: 'It doesn't feel like it wants to financially punish me.' Unlike other competitive card games, Netrunner does not demand that players shell out money on randomised booster packs. Instead, it operates more like a traditional board game – players buy each set in its entirety when released, with no luck or trading required. (Image: Null Signal Games) Prosser continued: 'The really tight integration between the Cyberpunk themes and the game's mechanics instantly sold me on the game.' Chris Dyer, a veteran player and former world champion, said: 'Netrunner instantly felt very refreshing and different to every other card game I'd played, which are inevitably variations on creatures beating each other up. 'By contrast, Netrunner is vividly imaginative; an asymmetrical cerebral duel where one player constructs an elaborate puzzle for the other to try to solve. The core mechanics and structure of the game are brilliantly designed, so the success or failure of both players is constantly on a knife edge, and it's the decisions that you make rather than the cards in your deck that will determine the result. It's endlessly deep, relentlessly skill-testing and incredibly strategic. 'I couldn't be more excited to go to the world championships in Edinburgh. The UK has always had a very enthusiastic group of players that have travelled all over the world to play competitive Netrunner, often with great success, so it's fitting that the most prestigious event on the calendar is finally on home soil. 'Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities, and it's home to a lot of great friends that I've met through Netrunner, so I can't wait to spend a weekend catching up with them and playing my favourite card game in a city that I love to visit!' Edinburgh-based player and former vice-president of engagement for Null Signal Games, Ed Fortune, was part of the team that brought the world championships to the UK for the first time. 'With the UK having one of the largest player bases in the world, it felt like the right time for it to be held here,' he said. 'I had previously helped organise the 2023 world championships in Barcelona, and what struck me was the importance of being able to visit such a fantastic host city. 'Hosting in a culturally significant city that is welcoming to all was really important to me. Scotland has historically been a hub of Netrunner players, with a fantastic community known for putting on great events. 'This made my adopted home city of Edinburgh the obvious choice, and the Scottish community put forward a compelling case for the world championships to be hosted here. 'Accommodation is abundant, good food is everywhere, and the city is on many people's bucket lists to visit.' Dundee-based player and local organiser Ronan McGarry added: 'Edinburgh is well-suited for the event, a dense city that will encourage locality in the attendees. It's a great city – beautiful, friendly and accommodating. I'm really confident that all the attendees will have a great time at worlds. 'As a local organiser, I've seen the level of excitement that worlds in Scotland has generated among both newer and veteran players. Our community chats have been busy, turnout to weekly events is up and interest is at a high. It's really a joy to see so much interest in the game after so long.' Pruyne highlighted Edinburgh's range of amenities and tourist attractions that visitors can easily walk to, adding: 'Edinburgh had a ton of ways for people to travel into the city, along with a strong local scene to help us find volunteers, venue scouts and evangelists for the city. Scotland was an obvious choice for us in terms of selecting a city we thought people from around the world would be excited to travel to.' The tournament will be happening in Dovecot Studios, an arts and heritage site in the city centre. Pruyne said that working with an arts venue suits the organisation well: 'A big part of our community includes artists making custom card arts, game components and artwork that we're looking forward to displaying during the event,' he said. The 2022 and 2023 world champion William Huang, who is based in Toronto, is looking forward to coming to Scotland to reclaim his crown: 'I'll definitely be coming to Scotland to try to win a third time. It's an exciting time for the game after a big rotation and I look forward to competing. 'I've never been to Scotland before but I've heard great things about the community there so I'm sure it'll be a great time.' The event is almost sold out but players can join the waitlist for tickets at Null Signal Games' website.
