Castle to Scottish greats plays host to the king of culture's vast art archive

Published on Sunday 7 February 2010 21:55

IT is a little-known 16th-century castle which attracted the likes of Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen and Alfred Tennyson to its exclusive literary soirées.

Craigcrook Castle, in Edinburgh's Blackhall area, played a huge role in Scotland's cultural life thanks to the highbrow gatherings held by its well-connected tenants, who included publishers, writers, politicians, judges and newspaper editors.

Dating back to 1542, the castle has been occupied by publisher Archibald Constable, lawyer and literary critic Lord Francis Jeffrey and Sir John Hall, a Lord Provost of Edinburgh.

Now it is to become one of Scotland's most important artistic treasure troves after the veteran impresario Richard Demarco revealed he had made a rental deal to relocate his vast archive there.

More than 50 years of cultural life in Scotland is charted in a series of exhibitions the 79-year-old co-founder of Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre and veteran gallery director has created over the last few weeks.

His archive has been without a proper home since 2004, when Mr Demarco fell out with Edinburgh City Council in a rent dispute over his use of part of the old Royal High School on Calton Hill.

He even threatened to send the collection overseas. It was relocated from the council-owned building to a huge farm building at Skateraw, in East Lothian, which was only occasionally opened for exhibitions in 2005.

Mr Demarco told The Scotsman he had found "the ideal home" for his vast collection of paintings, drawings, photographs, catalogues and other memorabilia. He has vowed to turn Craigcrook into a major new cultural attraction and study centre following years of searching for a proper home for the archive, which includes more than a million photographs and 10,000 works representing artists from 50 countries.

The Edinburgh-born artist hopes to open it fully for his 80th birthday celebrations in the summer, ahead of a major retrospective of his career at the Royal Scottish Academy on the Mound over the winter. Other plans include staging exhibitions by rising artists, creating a sculpture trail around the castle, and hosting outdoor theatre in the grounds.

The archive is thought to include the most comprehensive record of the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe, which he has participated in yearly since 1947. He has already created a host of new exhibitions – charting his career, some of the famous figures he brought to the capital, and the history of the festivals – at the castle's vast annexes after moving his collection out of a storage facility in Granton just before Christmas.

Mr Demarco said he hoped to raise enough money from supporters and major funders such as the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland to allow Craigcrook to become the permanent home of his archive.

Mr Demarco said: "I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to find somewhere like this. The archive is a unique record of 50 years of cultural life in Scotland and I hope I can raise the funds to keep it here on a permanent basis."

Duncan Macmillan, art critic at The Scotsman, said: "I don't think there's any doubt Ricky's archive is of huge value to the nation."

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS

AMONG the highlights of the Demarco archive, which records his personal involvement in some 1,500 exhibitions and 800 theatre productions, are:

&#149 Drawings and paintings of Sir Sean Connery, who was a model for Mr Demarco when he was a student at Edinburgh College of Art.

&#149 Material devoted to the launch of Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre – which Mr Demarco co-founded – in 1963.

&#149 Photographs charting the creation of Little Sparta, Ian Hamilton Finlay's famous sculpture garden from a barren hillside in Lanarkshire, from 1972 onwards.

&#149 Photographs of the then unknown German artist Joseph Beuys when he was brought to the Edinburgh Festival by Mr Demarco for the first time in 1970.

&#149 Accounts of the famous voyages Mr Demarco and his art students took on a sailing boat around Britain in 1979-1980.

&#149 The story of how Mr Demarco discovered the hidden artistic talents of convicted murderer-turned sculptor Jimmy Boyle in 1974.