Alan Rae, owner of Fidra Fine Art in Gullane, East Lothian, has often been in the company of artist friends at big exhibitions and has been fascinated to hear their comments and interpretations as they move around a show.
“Artists are trained to study their subjects,” he says. “They analyse colour, line and composition in finite detail. They see things that pass me by.”
The spark for Fidra’s latest exhibition, Inspired, which opens today, came when Alan listened to a biography of painter, Lucian Freud, on a lockdown walk.
He explains: “In 2000, Freud was invited to create a piece inspired by a work from the collection of London’s National Gallery. It made me think, maybe I should do the same thing.”
Now, with the blessing of the National Galleries of Scotland, Inspired, features the work of 32 leading Scottish artists and submissions include responses to works by Gustave Courbet, Sir Edward Landseer, Joan Eardley, FCB Cadell, John Singer Sargent, Eduardo Paolozzi, Sir Henry Raeburn, JMW Turner, Alexander Nasmyth and Peter Doig.
Fife-based comedian turned art student, Phill Jupitus, has morphed two artists’ work together in After Monarch Of The Glenda. This detailed drawing blends John Singer Sargent’s famous portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw with Landseer’s iconic The Monarch Of The Glen.
Glasgow-based painter Peter Thomson has created a beautifully quiet response to Joan Eardley’s Sleeping Nude of 1955, which depicted her friend, Angus Neil, lying on a single bed.
Jayne Stokes has drawn inspiration from paintings of croft houses on Iona by Cadell to create 24 small paintings of crofts on vintage souvenir matchboxes for her own set of paintings.
The show runs until the end of October but if you can’t make it to Gullane, check it out at fidrafineart.co.uk
Frames in Perth has been running for 43 years under owners Hugh and Julie Goring. Originally a framers, in the early 1990s, it added a gallery on to the framing side of the business.
Recently, the couple announced they were looking for a buyer for the business to allow them to retire. They continue to stage beautiful and thoughtful exhibitions. The latest is by Robert McGilvray.
Robert’s atmospheric paintings lie somewhere between abstract and landscape. They capture a sense of time and place.
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