News: Visit to Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Archives
siobhanmclaughlinstudio • February 3, 2020
In January I had the pleasure of going to visit the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Archives in Edinburgh with Barns-Graham Trust Director Rob Airey.
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham bequeathed to the Trust a significant collection of paintings, drawings and prints. This enables the Trust to present her work in a number of different contexts through exhibitions and facilitate long term loans to public galleries and museums.
Rob took me through the archive, showing paintings, prints and drawings from every decade of Barns-Graham's life. It was a fascinating insight into the range of work she created, and how each place she visited and lived had an impact on her style.
The library was extensive, and included a small box of collected clippings of Alan Davie's work!
During her lifetime Wilhelmina Barns-Graham accumulated a significant number of art books, magazines, private view cards, auction and exhibition catalogues. Holdings of material relating to herself, the wider St Ives group of artists and 20th century British art in general are particularly strong. Periodicals that are held in depth include Art Review, Modern Painters, Art International and Art Monthly. There is also other material that represents not only her broader interest in European Art from between 1940 and 1970, but also travel, cookery, history and biography. The Library also contains Barns-Graham’s photographic records of her work and her personal archive of photograph albums.
Header image: Scorpio Series 3, No.9, Acrylic on paper, 1997.
Below: Edinburgh Interior, Oil on hardboard, 1937. Displayed at SSA+VAS Open Exhibition, the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.
I'm delighted to present Belongings, a piece by Martin Holman written in response to my show 'Pilgrimages' at Hweg gallery , Penzance 22nd November 2024 - 11th January 2025. I'm really touched by Martin's insights, references and analysis of the work and hope you enjoy reading the text. Read time is roughly 10 - 15 minutes. Thank you to Martin and to Joe at Hweg. For images of the show, see my works page here .
Fantastic to see this new commission installed at the Hazel Restaurant, part of AC by Marriot Hotel, Glasgow.
Delighted to have been asked by Lyon and Turnbull to select my Top Picks for the upcoming Art Edit 793 Auction. Aimed at making the art market more accessible, The Art Edit series of auctions enables people to begin or grow their art collection, with estimates starting at £200. Recent lots have included works by Victoria Crowe, Dame Ethel Walker and Dame Laura Knight, and here I'll be highlighting my top 3 picks for the next auction , opening on Wednesday 26th June 2024.
This blog post will act as a record of my favourite workshops that I've led or co-led in the arts. All images are shared with consent of the participants.
During my residency in Cornwall, awarded by Visual Arts Scotland , Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust and Porthmeor Studios, I met artist Peter Ward . After seeing an interesting painting of his at the Tremenheere Gallery, Penzance, I contacted Ward to ask about the medium of 'earth pigments'. To my delight he offered to show me the best pigment collecting sites along the South West Coastal Path.
Letting go of the imposter syndrome and accepting/celebrating the fact that I'm actually a curator. Nearly 3.5k people visited the Alan Davie exhibition at Dovecot Studios . That's mad to me. Thanks so much to everyone who visited, I hope you enjoyed it! A huge thank you to Dovecot for supporting my idea and giving me the opportunity to curate when I had no previous 'professional' experience. From approaching Dovecot with an exhibition plan in September 2019 to speaking at the exhibition opening in June 2022, I've learned a lot. Thanks also to Edinburgh Art Festival , the William Grant Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation for the support.
Thank you to Edinburgh Art Festival for inviting me to speak at Art Late 2, streamed live from Jupiter Artland this week! It was a fantastic day of discussion, hearing from a range of artists, curators and creatives about their contributions to this years art festival. Watch the video below to hear my 8 reasons why everyone should visit the Alan Davie: Beginning of a Far-Off World exhibition at Dovecot Studios !
Alan Davie: Beginning of a far-off World opened at Dovecot Studios on 24th June 2022. I'm delighted that the reception to the exhibition, which I've been working on since September 2019 has been very positive so far.
BBC Radio Scotland's Nicola Meighan and I had a chat about Alan Davie last week on the opening day of my exhibition Alan Davie: Beginning of a far-off World at Dovecot Studios.
Meeting a lot of artists recently, who have such varied practices, has made me reflect on an essay I wrote back in 2018 on the role of artists in artist-run spaces. Particularly, meeting an artist who is currently studying Horticulture, got me thinking about the idea of 'artist-as-gardener'. I've just included a wee section of the essay here, which used EMBASSY Gallery in Edinburgh as a case-study, looking at the role of the artist in an artist-run space. In this section I was processing ideas of authorship and importance given to the 'Curator' title in contemporary discourse. Curatorial/artistic practice has developed significantly since I wrote this in 2018, but I think that the 'artist-as-gardener' idea is still a nice one.