A day around the galleries.

I’m just back from staying with a very good friend of mine in her cottage deep in the Angus countryside. We’ve had a bit of a sightseeing day today, we drove up to the glens, admired the view, watched the sheep and caught sight of a red squirrel playing by the side if the road. But yesterday was spent visiting a couple of galleries in the area. First on the list was the relatively new gallery space at the Dundee Botanical Gardens. We went there because my friend is having an exhibition of her work there in a couple of weeks and she needed to leave flyers and posters. We had a quick look around; there is an exhibition of figure work by local Dundee artist John Stour. I loved his work, probably because when I draw or paint, life study is my favourite subject and I truly appreciate how difficult it can be. These pictures do not do justice to his work; it is so much better when seen in the gallery. And these paintings are not the same as the ones we saw yesterday but they do give you a taste of what he can do.

Botanical Garden gallery Dundee John Stoa

http://www.johnstoa.co.uk/

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/botanic/exhibitions/

 
 

We also visited a tiny gallery in Dundee called The Queens Gallery. Here we saw work by Scottish artists Heather Soutar and Hulka Macintyre. Heather paints intricate fantasy images resembling fairy tale characters journying into unknown lands on whimsical vehicles. She usually paints in Acrylic on board and her paintings tend to be mostly in shades of blue.
Hulka produces wood cut prints, paintings and ceramic tiles but it was her ceramic work that was on display yesterday. I’ve seen her work before, I like it, it’s completely original and full of unexpected surprises.
Queens Gallery, Dundee; Hulka Macintyre

 http://www.queensgallery.co.uk/index.html


http://www.macintyre-art.com/hilke/

 Queens Gallery, Dundee; Heather Soutar

http://www.galleryq.co.uk/manufacturer.php?id_manufacturer=94

Lastly, we visited the most recent exhibition at the Meffin Gallery in Forfar where we saw the work of Louise Ritchie. I loved her colours, her work brought a smile to my face on a cold windy day.

Meffin Gallery Forfar Louise Ritchie

http://www.angus.gov.uk/history/museums/meffan/default.htm

http://louiseritchie.com/

 

Art. Nicol Porter

THIS IS THE FIRST NEW ART POST, THIS ONE WILL NOT DISAPPEAR ONCE MULTIPLY TURN THE LIGHTS OFF.

The Nicole Porter gallery.

This is exactly where I was, inside those purple doors sipping white wine at the opening of her most recent exhibition when I decided there really was something wrong with my eye and I needed to go home as soon as possible.

Nicole Porter was born in Aberdeen, trained as an Artist in Dundee and now runs the Nicole Porter gallery in Aberdeen.

The exhibition I went to see was not an exhibition of her work but an exhibition of other local artists. Her work was on  display at the back of the gallery and to say I was impressed is an understatement. 

This is the link to her gallery

http://www.nicoleporter.co.uk/

This is a link to her work

http://www.nicoleporter.co.uk/home.html

and please pay special attention to her portraits, they really are wonderful, full of detail, almost photographic but alive and warm at the same time. You think they will each out to touch you

Portrait paintings her

http://www.nicoleporter.co.uk/work.html

and this is a link to her blog where she talks about what is going on in the world of Art.

http://nicoleportergallery.blogspot.co.uk/

The following information is from her website. She has worked all over the world and is known internationally,

Biography

1986; Born in Aberdeen, Scotland.

2004 to 2008

First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, Scotland.

2008 to 2009

 Lived and worked in Norway. Studied with and assisted Odd Nerdrum in his international artists community.

Summer 2009

 Lived and worked in Paris. Studied with and assisted Odd Nerdrum in his Paris studio.

Autumn 2009

 Lived and worked in New York. Studied with and assisted Steven Assael in his New York studio. Studied at the Arts Students League in New York with Frank Porcu, Michael Grimaldi and Costa Vavagiaski.

Presently

 Living and working in Aberdeen, Scotland as resident artist and partner of The Nicole Porter Gallery.

She has also won countless awards including

Artist Of The Year 2011- Artists and Illustrators Magazine - shortlisted artist

Art,. Fergusson

Yesterday I spend an hour or so wandering around the Fergusson Gallery in Perth. The first pleasant surprise was the gallery itself. It’s a grade A listed structure originally built as Perths first Waterworks. It was designed by Dr Adam Anderson ( engineer and then rector of Perth Academy) and completed in 1832. It’s one of Scotlands best cast iron industrial monuments.
It’s also the earliest known example of cast iron building in Scotland. Perth used to use the river Tay as its main source of water but as early as 1750 the Town council recommended looking for alternative sources of fresh water due to contamination of the river. By 1820 no solution had been found and Anderson was appointed by the council to find a suitable supply.
It wasn’t until about ten years later that Anderson, unable to come up with a viable supply of fresh water put forward his extraordinary and very radical plan to build an infiltration system. His scheme was probably only accepted because the town recognized his previous success at providing the town with its first gas supply.  Anderson acted as architect, planner, chemist, geologist, physicist and engineer. An Act of Parliament was needed (granted 1829) to authorize the construction of Perths first waterworks. The waterworks was designed as a massive sandstone drum, sandstone being the local stone, surmounted by a cast iron water tank and covered by an iron dome.
This wonderful building has been threatened with demolition several times but it was finally saved from the threat of demolition and restored to its original condition by public concern and the Perth Civic trust in the 1960’s. It was initially used as the tourist information centre, when they were re-housed it was used as a general gallery by Perth council and now, after extensive refurbishment, it is the permanent home of the Fergusson collection and the National Centre for the study and appreciation of his work. The Fergusson gallery was opened 0n Fergusson’s birthday 9th march 1992.
http://www.pkc.gov.uk/Education+and+learning/Museums+and+galleries/Fergusson+Gallery/Fergusson was born in Leith near Edinburgh March 9th 1874. His parents both came from Pitlochry and Fergusson always considered Perthshire and the highlansda his spiritual home. As a young man he enrolled at Edinburgh to train as a painter but after only a few months he left to study on his own. He set himself a rigid timetable of painting and drawing from life mostly in the open air. His inspiration came from the Glasgow boys, a group of painters based around the Glasgow School of Art and the French naturalist painters.
He visited and studied in France regularly learning to make small quick studies which could later be worked from in a studio. One of the biggest influences during this time was Whistler, especially the work exhibited in Paris at the Memorial exhibition 1905.
He continued to live and work in different parts of France, and in 1913, in Paris, he met his lifelong partner Margaret Morris, a young dancer and painter who was visiting Paris with her own dance company.
During the war years Fergusson and Margaret returned to Britain, she stayed in London and he divided his time between her in London and his family in Edinburgh. Toward the end of the war he was commissioned to make a series of paintings in the naval dockyard Portsmouth.
 At the end of the war Margaret began establishing her various dance schools and Fergusson developed his reputation as one of Scotland’s greatest painters. He died in 1961 and it was Margaret Morris who inherited most of his work. She realized its importance and it was her who, in 1963, established the J D Fergusson Art Foundation to administer the collection.
The collection had, at that time, no permanent home but was loaned out regularly to various other international galleries. Now the collection of over 150 oil paintings, hundreds of watercolours and drawings, 23 sculptures, and around 60 and sketch books are all housed and stored under one roof. The archives, consisting of around 3000 letters, 500 photographs and Fergussons personal library are also part of the permanent collection. I have to say………..what a grand day out that was 

For more information see
http://www.exploreart.co.uk/artistic_styles_details.asp?ArtistID=27&ArtisticStyleID=4
Also, quite a long time ago I did another post on Fergusson, here
http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/journal/item/62/J._D._Fergusson_Scottish_Colourist
The red sail is one of the paintings Fergusson was commissioned to paint of Portsmouth Dockyard.
John Duncan Fergusson
Oil Painting
Fine Art
In this late painting, Fergusson shows how his association with the Fauvists, affected his work. Fergusson settled in Paris in 1907 and soon after his work underwent radical chqnge. He began to paint using bold colours and simple, flattened shapes. Even in this late work, probably painted after Fergusson settled in Glasgow, the lasting influence of Fauvists can be seen
He is primarily remembered a one of the Scottish Colourists, they were four Scottish artists who worked independently of one another but believed in the same approach to painting. These men were Samuel John Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter and Francis Boileau Cadell. The group all trained in France and the French influence can be seen in their work. Fergusson, more than the others was influenced in his later work by the Fauvist movement. 

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Jan 16 Sounds like a grand day out. Great to see a wonderful old building saved from demolition and then given a great new lease of life as the home of this artist's work. I rather like his artistic style.

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Jan 16 sounds like you've had yourself quite an adventure! thanks for teaching me a bunch of new stuff. HUGS

delete reply djdx wrote on Jan 16 I did see a few things that reminded me of Paul Serusier and the Nabis. Your page looks pretty even if this is not how you wanted it. I am seeing bands of flowers with a peachy background.

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on Jan 15 i learned a lot very interesting :-)

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Jan 15 wow! great stuff here :)

Art, McManus Gallery and Meffan Gallery

Over the last few of weeks I’ve been to a couple of exhibitions. The first was the re-opening of the McManus in Dundee (above) . This old Victorian building has been closed for almost 4 years for major refit works. When the building was originally erected no one seemed to care that it was sat on boggy marshland on the outskirts of the city. It’s not on the outskirts of the City any more but the problems of building a heavy gothic building on a marshy plot without properly draining the ground and strengthening the foundations finally took revenge and work had to be done. What was supposed to be a refit lasting a year and costing 8 million turned into a major rebuild costing 12 million and lasting 4 years. BUT; at last we have our McManus back, refitted, bits added, bits taken away, bits strengthened, bits totally renovated and lots of new staff with new uniforms all with permanent smiles fixed the their rather harassed faces. It’s so nice to be able to see some of my favourite paintings again, they have mostly been in storage for the last 4 years. This is one of my all time favourites by John Duncan, Dundee artist and a Celtic revivalist from the turn of the century.  It tells the story of local legend and fairie people.

Riders of the Sidhe, by John Duncan, 19th c. Scottish artist.

Read more about the McManus here.
http://scotland.stv.tv/see-do/160242-dundees-mcmanus-galleries-and-museum-reopens-after-three-years/
and here
http://www.dundee.com/news/mcmanus-refurbished-and-reopened.html
and here
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1626076?UserKey=
I also visited the Meffan Gallery in Forfar and saw the James Watterson Herald exhibition. I didn’t know much about this man before going to the exhibition but it was well worth a visit. He was such a prolific artist. He was local, born in Forfar in 1859, painted prolifically for most of his life, was never really given the recognition he deserved while alive and died a sad penniless man who liked his drink too much. The works I have managed to find online and show here are not his best and give no indication of how brilliant he was, I really wish you were all able to see this exhibition because he was such a talented man and still unknown to so many people.

James Watterson Herald - The Complete Collection

Dates:     23rd February 2010 - 13th March
Times:     10am - 5pm
Venue:     The Meffan
20 West High Street
Forfar
DD8 1BB
View Map
Telephone:     01307 464123
Email:     the.meffan@angus.gov.uk
Website:     James Watterson Herald - The Complete Collection
Write up from the gallery web site;
http://www.forfardispatch.co.uk/sv/MEFFAN-EXHIBITION-OF-JAMES-WATTERSTON.6080395.jp
The latest exhibition at The Meffan in Forfar is by the popular Angus artist James Watterston Herald, who was born in Forfar in 1859
 From a young age James was encouraged to pursue his artistic ambitions and over the years his interests developed into an outstanding talent.
He studied art at the High School of Dundee where he was regarded as a most promising pupil. He acquired a local reputation for his fine drawing skills and it became obvious that he had the artistic ability to make a career from his talent.He was encouraged to continue his art studies and he moved with his parents to Edinburgh in order to give him a better chance in his career. The city made a great impression on James and he produced an impressive body of work, mainly inspired by the streets and closes of Edinburgh's Old Town.It was during this time in Edinburgh that Herald's work began to meet with critical acclaim. Several of his works were exhibited by the Royal Scottish Academy and a painting was purchased by the Scottish Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts.His work began to move towards impressionism and he became fascinated by the paintings of Arthur Melville, one of the 'Glasgow Boys', who was himself originally from Angus. Both artists used the 'blottesque' technique where drops of pigment are applied to wet paper and manipulated with sponges and brushstrokes.Herald moved to Arbroath around 1888, and in 1891, with the proceeds of his painting, Herald enrolled at Herkomer's School of Art at Bushey in Hertfordshire to continue his studies.Herald then moved to London and enjoyed the Bohemian life it offered. He was charmed by the city and immersed himself in his work with great vigour, filling his sketch books with impressions of London streets, the river, the wharves and the characters which inhabited them.
Herald returned to Arbroath around 1900 after ten years in London, contentedly painting, drawing and sketching the world around him. This period in Herald's career witnessed some of his greatest artistic successes, and in 1910 a one-man exhibition of his watercolours and pastels was shown at the Baillie Gallery in London. It was a great success and two of the exhibits were bought for presentation to the British Museum and a third for the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Herald was to remain in Arbroath for the rest of his life, content to earn no more than a living. He was uninterested in personal gain and refused to capitalise on his work, often giving away his paintings and paying for drinks and meals with tiny ink or pencil drawings. His final years were spent in gradual physical decline. He fell ill in 1914 and died at the age of 55, and was laid to rest in Arbroath.
Today the reputation of James Watterston Herald continues to grow and his works can be found hanging on the walls of many homes and galleries throughout his native Scotland and beyond.He is known for his complete command of watercolour and masterly use of pastel, with an emphasis on decorative colour, subtle tone and harmony of composition. His work remains extremely popular and is often of a delicate nature, capturing reflected light and luminosity.
His subject matter was extensive, from figure and portraiture to land and seascapes. Herald saw in light and colour, never in outline, and his work is filled with hints and suggestions of the subject matter, often conveying more to the viewer than a realistic painting.

The exhibition at The Meffan opens on Saturday 13 February and runs until Saturday 13 March.

It is a chance to see Angus Council's entire permanent collection of work by this popular artist. A full colour catalogue will accompany the exhibition. In addition there will be a gallery talk on Herald's work by Norman Atkinson on 24 February at 10am. Admission is free and there is no need to book.

And finally off to Kinblethmont where I saw the spring exhibition of various contemporary local artists. Visit the exhibition here
http://www.kinblethmontgallery.co.uk/current.html

Spring Exhibition at Kinblethmont
Exhibitions
Dates:     5th March 2010 - 14th March 2010
Times:     11am - 5pm
Venue:     Kinblethmont Gallery
Kinblethmont
by Arbroath
DD11 4RW
View Map
Telephone:     01241 830756
Website:     Spring Exhibition at Kinblethmont
A mixed exhibition of contemporary art by Susan Winton, Norma Maclean,
Jackie Gardiner, Kirsten Harris, Eugen Jarych, Susie Lee, Tony Morrow, Harriet Radcliffe and Elizabeth Watson.
Kinblethmont is a new gallery set in a Victorian country house, positioned in mature woodland in rural Angus, 4 miles north of Arbroath, built on an ancient and historic site. The south facing, lower ground floor has been converted into three art galleries and the gardens are ideal for sculpture display. Currently there are 4 or 5 exhibitions per year, each lasting for 2 weeks.
We are pleased to announce a new project in colaboration with Letham Grange Hotel where we will be exhibiting works by some of the best contemporary artists in the area.

And here are a couple of ladies who are exhibiting this year.
http://www.kinblethmontgallery.co.uk/elizabethwatson.html


http://www.kinblethmontgallery.co.uk/normamaclean.htm

Hope you enjoy these exhibitions as much as I did,

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Mar 8, '10 what beautiful selections from you as always, Loretta. i always learn so much from your blogs. ; D

delete reply philsgal7759 wrote on Mar 7, '10 I really like the ones from Kinblethmont. I think we all have spring fever!

delete reply bennett1 wrote on Mar 7, '10 I love the soloist with violin; I stared at it for quite a while. The shapes and lines are so well done. The hands are exquisite.

delete reply djdx wrote on Mar 7, '10 And here I thought dropping pigment onto wet paper was quite modern. :-)

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Mar 7, '10 wonderfull work both so dreamy, soft and enchanting :)

delete reply kathyinozarks wrote on Mar 7, '10 excellent blog-thank you

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Mar 7, '10 mitchylr said As a photographer, I find both the McManus and Kinblethmont yes me too Mitch, next time I am at either of then I'll take photos for you, these little ones were just taken from the net.

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Mar 7, '10 As a photographer, I find both the McManus and Kinblethmont fascinating buildings in their own right, and I'd love to shoot both of them. I did find the work of Herald quite interesting, would be good to see more.

delete reply hedgewitch9 wrote on Mar 7, '10 Brilliant! You always take us on such enriching journeys and stories! Love the art here... especially the one of Bridhe :))

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Mar 7, '10 Thanks for taking us along.