FESTIVAL
ART
PE-20TH CENTY
I ASSEMBLY ROOMS 54 George Street. 226 2842. Daily Ham—midnight; Sat 10am—midnight.
Punch 150: Happy Birthday Mr Punch! Sat 10-31 Aug. Festival regulars, Punch‘s 150th birthday exhibition features all the best jokes — cartoons from Steadman. E. H. Shepard and others.
I FINE ART SOCIETY 137 George Street, 220 6370. Mon-Fri 9.30am—5.30pm; Sat 10am—1pm.
Opening the Window: British Artists in Meiji Japan 1880-1900 Sat 10 Aug—7 Sept. An artistic contribution to Britain‘sJapan Festival 1991, including works by Sir Alfred East, Mortimer Menpcs. E. A. Hornel, George Henry and others. The collection presents an insight into a country little understood by the West and reveals the influence of ‘Japonisme‘ on some of Britain‘s most important artists. I NATIONAL GALLERY OF SCOTLAND The Mound. 556 8921. Mon—Sat 10am—5pm: Sun 2—5pm.
Saved ior Scotland Until 29 Sept. Works by Blake, Stubbs, Raphael. Poussin, Gainsborough, Velazquez and Van Gogh — all acquired by Scottish collections with the help of the National Art Collections Fund, set up in 1903 to help galleries buy works of particular importance.
The Stylish image: Printmakers to the Court oi RtidDII II Until 13 Oct. A dedicated patron ofthe arts, the Emperor Rudolfll accumulated an impressive collection of engravings— from his accession in 1576. until his death in 1612 — which was housed in the great palace of Prague. This exhibition includes artists such as Jan Saenredam. Hendrik Goltzius and Aegidius Sadeler and is drawn from collections throughout Europe.
I OPEN EYE GALLERY 75 Cumberland Street, 557 1020. Mon—Fri 10am-6pm. Sat 10am—4pm.
From Durer to Picasso: 500 Years otMaster Printmaking Sat 10 Aug-5 Sept.
I ROYAL BOTANlC GARDEN Inverleith Row, 552 7171. Mon—Sat 9am—sunset; Sun Ham—sunset. Cafe. [D].
Redoute's Roses Sat 10 Aug—15 Sept. £2 (£1) children free. The darling of Parisian society and favourite of two French Queens— Empress Josephine and Marie Antoinette — Pierre-Joseph Redoute‘s paintings of roses are the most famous botanical images of all time. Redoute, who was born in 1759, once explained that he only painted flowers because ‘it was better to establish supremacy in one field, no matter how lowly, than to risk failure in a more exalted one.‘
I ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY The Mound, 225 6671. Mon-Sat 10am-5pm; Sun 2—5pm.
Virtue and Vision: Sculpture and Scotland 1540-1990 Until 15 Sept. £1 (50p). A sweeping panorama of the role of sculpture in Scotland from Samuel Joseph, the first sculptor to show at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1826, to Eduardo Paolozzi, William Tumbull and Ian Hamilton Finlay — sculptors who bring the images of primitive and classical societies to bear on their work.
I EDINBURGH COLLEGE OF ART Lauriston Place, 229 9311. Daily lOam—Spm. Andrew Walker Drawings and Paintings 1981-1991 Sun 11 Aug—1 Sept.
Donald Urquhart: Recent Paintings Sun 11 Aug—1 Sept.
I DUNEDIN GALLERY 6 Hillside Street. Wed-Sun 11am—6pm.
The All of Medicine Until 31 Aug. An exploration of the relationship between art and medicine — medical subjects in art, illness in the artist . . . it’s enough to make
Helen Flockhart‘s With Silver Bells and Cockle Shells
Mary Queen oi Scots: A Feminist Tradition? at the Ash Gallery.
A romantic and tragic heroine to her supporters, a treacherous adulteress, it not murderess to her political enemies, the lite oi Mary Queen oi Scots contains all oi the power struggle, intrigue and sexual scandal oi a contemporary soap opera.
What relevance, then, can her lite have lor Scottish women today? This is the tenuous question which was posed to six iemale Scottish artists by the Ash Gallery. Overthe next month the artists, who are exhibiting in three groups oi two, will show their own responses to this diliicult and diverse question through an equally wide range
oi mediums and sensibilities.
Feeling an ailinity tor a deposed and executed 16th-century iemale monarch is perhaps too great a ilight oi historical lancy tor the mind to grasp. However, it is oi beneilt to the works on show that their quality distracts us away irom dealing with the theme in any simple way. Although the work oi Helen Flockhan actually contains a ‘portrait’ oi Mary, her work is more concerned with her own personal and emotional history than with a pastiche oi historical painting. By producing iconographic artworks which mimic the naivity oi early Renaissance paintings,
she creates historical caricatures which are both humorous and compelling by revealing the iniluence ol history on our sense oi identity.
Annie Cattrell’s work, Legacy, is less immediately concerned with the exhibition’s ‘theme’, but this is to its beneilt. Through mixing and juxtaposing the genres oi sculpture and wallwork, Cattrell contradicts the historical values that each possess. She creates objects which challenge the split between personal and historical experience. Herworlt invites the viewer to identity iamiliar objects which have been estranged irom their original meanings, and so obtain new meanings tor those objects; thus new meanings irom a commonly held ‘legacy' oi reierences can be interred.
Don’t go to this exhibition expecting to see works which concretely represent the subject oi discussion - you will iind that the question oi Mary Queen oi Scots‘ relevance to contemporary experience remains unanswered. But the works are themselves relevant and, over the next month, we can expect to see many varied and subjective interpretations oi the question. Whether or not we iind any answers is another matter. (Ewan Morrison)
you feel a bit rly.
I EDINBURGH PRINTMAKERS WORKSHOP AND GALLERY 23 Union Street, 557 2479. Mon—Sat 10am—5.30pm.
Marc Chagall: Selected Graphic Works Sat 10 Aug—l4 Sept. A rare chance to see a selection of lithographs and etchings by the French artist. ‘Lyrical images demonstrate his marvellous use of colour line and tone in his perpetual exploration of the themes of love, religion and animal life.‘
I EDITH SIMON GALLERY Student Centre, Bristo Square, 667 0214. Mon-Sat . 10.30am-6.30pm.
Signals Until 31 Aug. A ‘powerful‘ new
collection of Simon‘s scalpel-paintings, sculpture, audio-visual and video pieces. I FRUITMARKET GALLERY 29 Market Street, 225 2383. Mon—Sat lOam—8pm; Sun 1 1am-5pm. .
ian Hamilton Finlay and the Wild Hawthorn "081958—1991 Sat 10 Aug-l4 Sept. £2 (£1). Poet, artist, garden designer extraor'dr’naire, Finlay was also Britain‘s first concrete poet, and The Wild Hawthorn Press, which he founded. continues to publish his work. This, the first major retrospective of Finlay‘s printed work, features his concrete poetry, neon works and some of more recent, classically-based work. Finlay's
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best known themes, the sea, classical Arcadia and the French Revolution are all represented, and there is a slide display of the Finlay's own garden at Stonypath, Lanarkshire. .
I GALLERY OF MODERN ART Belford Road. 556 8921 . Mon—Sat 10am—5pm; Sun 2—5pm. [D] Cafe.
The gallery‘s justly renowned cafe is open Mon—Sat 10.30am—4.30pm; Sun 2.30-4.20pm. Entry to the permanent collection is free.
Michael Andrews: Ayers Rock and Other ' Landscapes Sat 10 Aug—29 Sept. £2 (£1). A major exhibition of work, including a group of nine vast paintings- the result of Andrews‘ visit in 1983 to Ayers Rock and the Uluru National Park in Australia. Andrews produced the canvases in his studio in Norfolk, bringing back bags of soil and rock dust and mixing them with the paint to enhance the texture and physical reality of the paintings.
I OPEN EYE GALLERY 75 Cumberland Street. 557 1020. Mon—Fri 10am—6pm, Sat 10am—4pm.
Contemporary British Sculpture Sat 10 Aug—5 Sept.
I ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN lnverleith Row. 552 7171 . Mon-Sat 9am-sunset; Sun 11am—sunset. Cafe. [D].
The Avant Garden Until 20 Oct. Contemporary garden and conservatory ‘furniture’, including Paul Amey’s pink flamingoes and Kate Mellor‘s stoneware lanterns. There is something for every garden say the organisers, ‘from rolling parkland to city window~box, from elegant orangery to humble lean-to‘.
I TALBOT RICE GALLERY Edinburgh University Old College, South Bridge.
. Mon—Sat lOam—Spm; Sun 2—5pm.
Zen: Hamano and Ryu Sat 10 Aug—7 Sept. Contemporary work by the Japanese painter Toshihiro Hamano — dedicated to the restatement of the traditional values of Zen Buddhism —, alongside works by a small group of his disciples who have formed the group Ryu.
The Poor Fisherman Sat 10 Aug-7 Sept. This painting, by Puvis de Chavannes, was an important inspiration to artists like Seurat, Gaugin and Picasso. In Scotland it struck a particular chord with William McTaggart, John Duncan and, recently, with lan Hamilton Finlay. This exhibition, conceived by Finlay, focuses on his relationship with the painting and includes a major sculpture not previously exhibited in Scotland.
SCOTTISH
I THE ASH GALLERY 156 Canongate , 556 2160. Mon—Sat 10am—6pm.
Mary Queen of Scots . . . AFemlnist Tradition? Until 31 Aug. A series of exhibitions by Scottish women, in homage to the Queen ‘whose life pattern was set out in front of her, whose future and eventual fate was planned and decided by others and whose freedom was repressed.’ Helen Flockhart: A Scottish Siren and Annie Catirell: Legacy Until Sat 10 Aug.
Rose Frain: Reyna Decosse (A Distillation) and Tracy Mackenna: Deception: lmposters I BLUE MOON CAFE 60 Broughton Street, 5562788. Daily, llam-l 1pm.
Permanent collection of works by Leila Galloway, Tony Cooper, Alistair Warner and David Hutchinson.
I BOURNE FINE ART 4 Dundas Street, 557 4050. Mon—Fri 10am—6pm; Sat
10am—1 pm.
Sir William Gillies (1893-1973) Fri 9—30 Aug. A major retrospective of one of the most influential Scottish artists this century. Together with Anne Redpath and Sir William McTaggart, Gillies spearheaded the talented group of
The List 9- 15 August 199167