Art Galleries
The National Gallery of Scotland is located in the middle of Princes Street. An elaborate edifice, it stands on the ‘Mound’ between the two sections of Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens.
The archive and study facilities at the National Gallery include the Prints and Drawings Collection of over 30,000 works on paper, from the early Renaissance to the late nineteenth century; and the reference-only research library, which is available to the general public.
The library covers the period from 1300 to 1900 and holds approximately 50,000 volumes of books, journals, slides, and photographs, as well as archived material relating to the collections, exhibitions and history of the National Gallery.
The Playfair Project, an underground interconnection between the two buildings, opened on 4 August 2004. This contains a lecture theatre, education area, shop, restaurant and an interactive, touch-screen IT Gallery showing the collections of the National Galleries.
Other Galleries
The Royal Scottish Academy is Edinburgh’s premier organisation promoting contemporary Scottish Art. The RSA was founded in 1826, and maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by artists and architects whose purpose is to promote and support the enjoyment of the visual arts through exhibitions and other related events. Please check the website for details of upcoming exhibitions.
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery located on Queen Street. It holds the national collections of portraits, which are mostly taken by Scots. It opened in 1889 and was established by the newspaper magnate John Ritchie Findlay.
Further into the New Town, and part of the National Galleries of Scotland, lies both the Gallery of Modern Art and the Dean Gallery. The Dean Gallery was designed by Thomas Hamilton in 1830. It contains a large collection of Dada and Surreallist art and literature and it regularly holds temporary exhibitions. It also has a lovely Cafe, which is very popular for lunch, so arrive early for the best treats!
Across the road for the Dean Gallery sits the Gallery of Modern Art. The grounds house landscape sculptures, created by Henry Moore, Rachel Whiteread, Tony Cragg and Barbara Hepworth which present a stunning and peaceful stroll into the gallery entrance. In 2002 the front lawn was converted in a giant landform sculpture. The sculpture is said to be inspired by chaos theory.
The collection includes work by Picasso, Mondrian, Peter Howson, Francis Bacon, Lucien Frued, as well as many others. Again, this Gallery has a wonderful cafe. In the spring and summertime you can eat outside, relax and enjoy the atmoshpere.
No related posts.
