Scottish Women Artists review — helping to redraw the past

In 1938, the Scottish artist Dame Ethel Walker apparently said: “There is no such thing as a woman artist. There are only two types of artists: good and bad.”

It’s an apposite quote but — given the context of this show of about 60 female artists, spanning 250 years to the present — a curious and contentious one. Taken at face level, might it seem to question the entire premise of the exhibition?

Anyone with a passing knowledge of the cultural scene in Scotland cannot have failed to notice that it is now overwhelmingly populated by women — from undergraduates in art schools, to private galleries, and to state institutions such as the National Galleries of Scotland.

This was not always the case and we must remind ourselves that even two generations ago it was almost impossible for women to forge a career in the visual arts. So, we find the rationale for this exquisitely curated and designed show in its catalogue where the author Charlotte Rostek writes that she “presents this book as still necessary to right a balance, for even if the present may seem triumphantly hopeful, the past is yet to be wholly won”.

The show is full of surprises. Although its basis is the Fleming Collection — established in 1968 by the Dundonian bank — the Dovecot curators have extended its reach and by doing so have enriched our experience. Divided into six sections — A Scottish Landscape, Interior Lives, Broader Horizons, Scottish Identities, Making Her Own Way and Artistic Communities — this rather neat taxonomy allows themes and preoccupations to emerge.

Sekai Machache, the Scottish Zimbabwean artist who was born in 1989, finds her work spread across three of these categories. A medium-sized tapestry called Lively Blue, commissioned and made by Dovecot and based on a sketch by Machache, seems to ask questions about the complex history of indigo pigment. Elsewhere two photographic self-portraits by Machache, seated, costumed, in the haunting reflective beauty of the “Flow Country” — a rare type of peatland in the North of Scotland — ask similarly awkward questions about Scottish land and landscape and who “belongs” in it.

There are many familiar names from the various epochs the show covers, including Phoebe Anna Traquair, Cecile Walton, Joan Eardley, Anne Redpath, Elizabeth Blackadder and Alberta Whittle but a number of others stand out, adumbrated from historical obscurity. Perhaps the most significant of these names is that of Catherine Read (1723-1778) a celebrated society portraitist of her day. Here the mezzotints made of her work by her contemporary, John Finlayson, testify to her commercial success and popular appeal.

As with any selection there are inevitably omissions. Some significant internationally known artists will find themselves disappointed by their lack of representation. But this show purports to be neither a comprehensive survey nor a wholly representative picture. As such, it should be celebrated for helping to “win the past” and for opening the field for similarly rewarding shows in the future.

     Until January 6, 2024