Portrait Gallery gets back in the picture

However, major new portraits or sculptures of prominent living Scots commissioned from top artists will be missing from the line-up.

The absence of works depicting the likes of former prime minister Gordon Brown or singer Lulu has worried some Scottish arts insiders.

“Having got this great new building, it would be nice to enter 2012 with a couple of great commissions, really interesting Scots, by really interesting artists,” said Duncan Thomson, who was the gallery’s director for 15 years.

John Leighton, the director-general of National Galleries of Scotland, promised a string of “highly relevant” commissions to be unveiled in the coming year. “We see the development of the collection as a huge priority for the future,” he said.

As the building on Edinburgh’s Queen Street was unveiled to the Press yesterday, Mr Leighton hailed it as “restored and brought back to life”, with blocked-up windows and lowered ceilings removed.

The gallery will win over funders for new works with its stunning new look, he said.

The new exhibitions range from classics of Scottish photography in the first public gallery space dedicated to the art form, to a stunning display of First World War paintings by “Glasgow Boy” Sir John Lavery – mostly on loan from the Imperial War Museum.

However, a senior Scottish arts insider, who asked not to be named, said: “The refurbishment of Scotland’s national portrait gallery is a matter of rejoicing.

“But it is vital that the portrait gallery continues its enlightened programme of commissioning major portraits – paintings, and sculpture – of outstanding figures in Scottish contemporary life. Those haven’t really materialised in the last three years, the period of the closure.”

In 1982, Mr Thomson began the policy of commissioning portraits of influential living Scots. “This is a major part of keeping up with the present,” he said. “The feeling was that we would miss people. If it’s clobbered by a lack of funds, that’s a great shame.”

A galleries spokesman responded that the gallery had commissioned “many works of art for the opening displays”.

They include a striking exhibition by photographer Verena Jaekel of the Pakistani community in Scotland, and a video work tied to a National Theatre of Scotland production of Andrew O’Hagan’s novel The Missing.

Mr Thomson recalled once meeting Lulu, the Scottish singer, to try to persuade her to have her portrait painted. She mentioned artists like Lucian Freud that were out of the gallery’s price range. It is also understood that negotiations to secure a video portrait of the singer Annie Lennox, by the photographer and film-maker Sam Taylor Wood, broke down over cost.