Unsung Scottish Art

Adam Bruce Thomson, the Meadows Festival, and upcoming events

‘North Bridge and Salisbury Crags, Edinburgh, from the North West’ by Adam Bruce Thomson. Museums & Galleries Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh Council.

‘Adam Bruce Thomson: The Quiet Path’ is a new exhibition at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre, drawing attention to a prolific but relatively little-known Scottish artist. The exhibition hosts a range of Thomson’s beautiful portraits, landscapes and cityscapes from locations across Scotland, and will remain open to the public until October.

Interestingly, the exhibition focuses on the fact that Thomson was a modest and understated artist, something which denied him the cultural spotlight during his own time - hence the exhibition’s title, ‘The Quiet Path’.

Overall, the exhibition is striking for its familiarity. There’s something really engaging about recognising places you know in art, and seeing them reflected back at you in ways you hadn’t imagined before. From dramatic views of central Edinburgh, with old fashioned buses passing over North Bridge, to Borders abbeys and rural landscapes, the overall message is one that’s close to my heart: that Scotland is a subject worth making art about.

‘North End, Iona, In Fitful Sunlight’ by Adam Bruce Thomson. Museums & Galleries Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh Council.

The exhibition includes paintings of iconic places like Iona, the ancient monastic island once home to Scotland’s earliest patron saint, St Columba. Thomson’s paintings of the island reminded me of something written by the painter Sandy Moffat in Arts of Independence about the centrality of Iona to early 20th century Scottish artists:

“For all those thinkers, painters and poets connected with Celtic art in the regeneration of Scotland, from the pioneering work of Patrick Geddes in the late 19th century to the Scottish Literary Renaissance of the 1920s, Iona was the mythic co-ordinate point, the place from which artists of different kinds began to take their bearings.”¹

It’s good to see Thomson’s work getting this moment of recognition at a cultural institution. Is there another Scottish artist you think has gone unsung? Leave a comment below.

Meadows Festival

It was a pleasure to spend a sunny weekend chatting about all things maps and Scottish history at the Meadows Festival in Edinburgh (1 - 2 June). This was my second year at the festival and it has become one of my favourite events of the year. Thank you to everyone who stopped by and picked up a copy of the Atlas of Scotland.

Highland Show & Kelvingrove

For the first time this year I’ll be be trading at the Highland Show, a four-day showcase Scottish food, agriculture and rural life, running Thursday 20 - Sunday 23 June at Ingliston. You can find me there in the 3D2D Arts & Crafts tent.

After that, I’ll be trading at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow over the weekend of 29 - 30 June, at the craft market hosted by Tea Green Events.

1. Arts of Independence by Alexander Moffat & Alan Riach (Luath Press)