2021 Arts Preview: The Year Ahead in Visual Art

Scotsman art critics Susan Mansfield and Duncan Macmillan highlight the must-see exhibitions of 2021
Beginning of a Far-off World by Alan DavieBeginning of a Far-off World by Alan Davie
Beginning of a Far-off World by Alan Davie

An Exhibition Celebrating the Lives of W Gordon Smith and Mrs Jay Gordon Smith, Open Eye, Edinburgh, 10-30 January W Gordon Smith, who died 1996, was well-known as a playwright and art critic, but it transpires that, together with his wife Jay, he was also an art collector on a big scale. Now after the death of Jay, their collection is being exhibited at the Open Eye. Proceeds will support the RSA’s Residencies for Scotland program and bursaries for Foundation Year students at Leith School of Art. There are around 250 paintings and works on paper in the collection and other miscellaneous art works, too. Highlights include a group of early works by John Bellany, a couple of lovely early paintings by James Morrison, works by Robin Philipson, prints by Willie Rodger and nearly forgotten names from the sixties like Neil Dallas Brown. With a great deal else besides, it’s a kaleidoscope of recent Scottish art. DM

John McLean: Prints and Works on Paper, Fine Art Society, Edinburgh, 14 January until 6 February The death of John McLean last year deprived us of one of our finest painters – though he lived and worked in London, he remained a true Scot. He was a poet of abstraction, indeed he liked to compare his work to singing and dancing. He used colour, paint and canvas with unflagging invention and undimmed delight right down until his last show which he produced only weeks before his death and in spite of crippling illness. It is very welcome news that the Fine Art Society is beginning the year with an exhibition of his works on paper. DM

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Alan Davie: Beginning of a Far-off World, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, 22 January until 6 March Dovecot’s centenary celebration for Scottish artist Alan Davie might be happening in his 101st year, but it is still a rare and important chance to see a broad spectrum of his work in his home nation. The show will include rarely seen works from each decade of his career (he died in 2014, aged 93) beginning with paintings he made in the 1940s as a recent graduate of Edinburgh College of Art in thrall to abstract expressionism. Davie was a true polymath, working as a painter, silversmith and jazz musician, and collaborating with Dovecot weavers on tapestries and rugs, examples of which will also be in the show. SM

Painted Banjo by John Byrne, part of the W Gordon Smith collection exhibition at Open Eye PIC: Jed GordonPainted Banjo by John Byrne, part of the W Gordon Smith collection exhibition at Open Eye PIC: Jed Gordon
Painted Banjo by John Byrne, part of the W Gordon Smith collection exhibition at Open Eye PIC: Jed Gordon

The Normal, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 29 January until 10 April Whatever else 2021 brings, one hopes it will bring intelligent responses in art to the events of the last year. This big group show reopening the Talbot Rice Gallery after nine months of coronavirus closure is billed as “an exhibition developed in response to the wake-up call of Covid-19”. It’s an ambitious, wide-ranging international show, looking at how the pandemic might reshape our thinking on key issues from race to climate change to the ways we live and work. It includes work by Scottish artist Tonya McMullan, who mapped the pandemic through a network of bee-keepers, and rarely seen work by the Boyle Family from the 1970s. SM

Karla Black Retrospective, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, from 21 April

The reopening of the Fruitmarket Gallery after its £3.75million expansion and redevelopment is now set for 21 April, with a retrospective of work by Scottish artist Karla Black extending across all its spaces. Black, who represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and was nominated for the Turner Prize in the same year, creates sculptures using materials such as cardboard, polythene, mirrors, vaseline, medicines and cosmetics. As well as bringing together sculptures from the last two decades, she will create new work in the weeks prior to opening in the upper gallery and the new double-height warehouse space next door. SM

Charles H Mackie: Colour and Light, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 15 May to 10 October

An installation view of Karla Black's exhibition at the Palazzo Pisani, Venice, 2011 PIC: Courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photograph by Gautier DeblondeAn installation view of Karla Black's exhibition at the Palazzo Pisani, Venice, 2011 PIC: Courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photograph by Gautier Deblonde
An installation view of Karla Black's exhibition at the Palazzo Pisani, Venice, 2011 PIC: Courtesy the artist and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Photograph by Gautier Deblonde

Charles Mackie was a key figure in Scottish art from the 1880s well into the 20th century. He was a great colourist before the Colourists and a personal link between Scotland and the avant garde in France. His woodblock prints are masterpieces of the form. He worked with Patrick Geddes and in his time was well-known. Since then however, he has been largely forgotten. A major retrospective at Edinburgh City Art Centre promises to be an important event in the art calendar for 2021. It was planned for last year, but postponed and will now take place in the summer. DM

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Marine: Ian Hamilton Finlay, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 22 May until 3 October

Edinburgh City Art Centre has been heroic in these straightened times. With a tiny staff and extremely limited resources, it is nevertheless planning a serious programme for next year. As well as the Charles Mackie show, highlights will include an exhibition of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s marine prints. The sea, ships, sailing boats and sea-fishing were central to Finlay’s poetic iconography where words and images work together, indeed words create images as they do in Star Steer, his quintessential marine print where the words are the pattern of starlight on water. DM

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Joan Eardley 100, Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, 9 July until 13 October The University of Glasgow, Glasgow School of Art, Paisley Museum and Glasgow Women’s Library have come together in the Scottish Women and the Arts Research Network (SWARN) to explore different aspects of Eardley’s work and legacy in the year of the centenary of her birth. This exhibition is part of a year-long programme starting in May 2021. Glasgow University holds a significant collection of paintings and works on paper spanning Eardley’s career, while GSA has rarely seen drawings and sketches from her time at art school. The Scottish Gallery is also planning an Eardley anniversary show during the Edinburgh Festival. SMFrances Walker RSA, Royal Scottish Academy, 31 July to 4 September It was Frances Walker’s 90th birthday last year. She was made CBE and not many honours were so well deserved, but her birthday was also to have been marked with an exhibition. Inevitably it was postponed. Now however the RSA will celebrate one of its most distinguished members. Landscape has been her main concern and in her paintings and truly remarkable prints, she has shown how it is an art form that can be as rich and creative now as it ever was. DM

There were Three Maidens pu’d a Flower (By the Bonnie Banks o’ Fordie), c.1897 by Charles MackieThere were Three Maidens pu’d a Flower (By the Bonnie Banks o’ Fordie), c.1897 by Charles Mackie
There were Three Maidens pu’d a Flower (By the Bonnie Banks o’ Fordie), c.1897 by Charles Mackie

Christine Borland: Whisperings, From Here, Inverleith House, Edinburgh, 31 July until 31 October While the much anticipated programme to mark the 350th anniversary of the Royal Botanic Gardens in 2020 was knocked on the head by the pandemic, many of the planned events will resurface in 2021, including this solo show by artist Christine Borland looking at the life-cycle of flax. Borland’s interest in materials and their political and cultural resonances is ideally suited to a project like this where she not only experimented with growing her own flax on a residency in the Gardens but dug deep into its history, particularly in relation to women’s work and lives. SM

*At time of going to press, the 2021 programme for the National Galleries of Scotland was unavailable

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Children and Chalked Wall 3, 1962-1963 by Joan EardleyChildren and Chalked Wall 3, 1962-1963 by Joan Eardley
Children and Chalked Wall 3, 1962-1963 by Joan Eardley

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