Roy Lichtenstein works to go on show in Edinburgh

A visitor passes by artworks by late US artist Roy Lichtenstein. Picture: Getty

The paintings by Lichtenstein, famous for using comic-style art to parody a range of subjects, will be displayed at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA).

Lichtenstein, a contemporary of artists such as Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, was one of the leading lights in the New York art scene in the 1960s.

The SNGMA currently houses his ‘In The Car’ piece from 1963, which will join a range of his other works in the exhibition next spring.

‘The Artist Rooms on Tour’ will see works by famous artists such as Damien Hirst and celebrated American photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Diane Arbus to 17 venues across Britain, including six in Scotland.

Hirst’s ‘Away from the Flock’ featuring a dead sheep, preserved in a glass tank of formaldehyde, will be the highlight of an exhibition of his work at the Piers Art Centre in Orkney - the northernmost venue in Britain to display his art.

Also in Scotland, Timespan in Helmsdale, Sutherland, part of the second Artist Rooms tour in 2010, will be showing work by the hugely influential German artist Joseph Beuys,

Kirkcaldy Galleries which is mounting the Mapplethorpe exhibition and Clydebank museum and art gallery which will be displaying Arbus’s work are taking part in the scheme, now in its seventh year, for the first time.

A number of exhibitions which opened in 2013-14 and which will continue into 2015. This include an exhibition by internationally renown photojournalist Don McCullin which will be shown at two venues on Shetland - the Bonhoga Gallery and the Shetland museum and archives.

In November, a group of young people from Shetland who will have been studying McCullin’s at the two venues, will travel to Tate Modern in London to meet the photographer. On their return they will work on a exhibition of their experience which will go on show on Shetland.

Speaking of the tour launch in conjunction with Tate, John Leighton, director-general of the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “Artist Rooms is making a very significant contribution to the artistic landscape of Scotland, creating opportunities for new publics to access world-class contemporary art in venues the length and breadth of the country.

“Audiences have been increasing and the future programme will involve both existing and new partners in Scotland in the effort to build on that success.”

The total number of artists now part of the Artist Rooms collection is 39.

This year saw the addition of an important group of works by the great American artist Dan Flavin, who created some of the most iconic works of Minimalism, which is currently on show at the Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries.

These join recent acquisitions of the work of Alex Katz, Douglas Gordon and Louise Bourgeois.

Across the rest of the UK the 2015 tour will also include venues in Blackburn, Carlisle, Cheltenham, Norwich, Penzance, Peterborough, Plymouth, Sleaford, Southampton and St Ives.

By the end of 2015, Artist Rooms will have been shown in 78 museums and galleries nationwide and 149 displays and exhibitions will have opened since 2009.

The exhibitions have been seen by over 31 million people to date. The tour is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and through the continued support of the Art Fund and, in Scotland, intended support from the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.

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