Fleming Collection

Calder MacKay, ‘Na h-Oighrean (The Heirs)’, © the artist. A painted group portrait of five young boys standing outdoors; one laughs at the front while others hold small animals and look toward the viewer. A shed and green trees sit in the background.

Calder MacKay, ‘A Just Man’, © the artist. A painting of two people lounging beside a red caravan; one leans in to kiss the other, who reclines in a striped top against a sunny green landscape.

Calder MacKay, ‘Sunday Best’, © the artist. A monochromatic yellow painting of a young girl in a white dress standing on a crate, surrounded by dense, glowing foliage.

Calder MacKay, ‘His Virgil’, © the artist. A painting of a blonde woman seen from behind, looking toward a dark, nighttime street filled with glowing lights; the scene blends into a watery, pale blue reflection on the right.

🎨 This week’s spotlight: Calder MacKay.

His work digs into modern masculinity and family dynamics, often using old photos as a starting point.

Working from his grandparents’ former home, he puts the personal at the centre of his practice.

In 2025, he won the RSA New Artists Award.

Happy St Andrew’s Day! 🏴

We’re celebrating with two appearances of Robert the Bruce in the Fleming Collection.

Eric Robertson paints a famous Bannockburn moment with bold Vorticist energy, while George Jamesone imagines a noble, rugged warrior king ⚔️

A boy standing barefoot in a doorway, shielding his eyes from the sun as he clutches a stack of schoolbooks. The title offers context: The Reluctant Schoolboy.

John Burn’s sensitive handling of light and texture transforms a quiet pause into something poignant. You can almost hear his fed-up sigh!

This preparatory sketch of St Agnes offers a window into artist David Gauld’s creative process, showing how his ideas took form before becoming the completed painting.

Seen here alongside the final work, now held by National Galleries Scotland, it reveals the journey to fully realised composition.

Less than a week to enter our 2025 Young People’s Art Competition! 🖌️

Open to under 16s, all entries must be inspired by works in The Fleming Collection 🖼️

📩 Send artwork (JPEG/PDF) + details to info@flemingcollection.com

Explore for inspo: flemingcollection.co.uk or Art UK 🌟

Grace Ndiritu: Compassionate Rebels in Action at Dundee’s Cooper Gallery Review | News & Press | Scottish Art News | Fleming collection A window into Scottish Art

🎨 Grace Ndiritu’s Compassionate Rebels in Action transforms Cooper Gallery into a space of protest and collective action.

Read Shalmali Shetty’s review of the immersive exhibition, the final sit-in of the Ignorant Art School initiative: bit.ly/gracendiritu

🎨 This week’s spotlight: Aoife Cawley, a printmaker and textiles artist working between Ireland and Scotland.

Recent residencies include Creative Spark and the Hugo Burge Foundation, and she received the RSA John Kinross Scholarship in 2024.

Ken Currie, ‘The Calton Activist’ (c. 1987). © the artist’s estate.

Craigie Aitchison, ‘Crucifixion’ (c. 1993). © The artist’s estate. All rights reserved. 2019/ Bridgeman Images.

Alberto Morrocco, ‘Tay Bridge, Winter’ (c. 1977) (cropped). © The artist’s estate. All rights reserved.

James Guthrie, ‘The Bridge, Crowland’ (c. 1882). The Fleming Collection.

Dog is man’s best friend 🐶

Here are a few of our favourite four-legged muses from the Fleming Collection 🎨

#ScottishArt #FlemingCollection #DogsInArt

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, 'Orange, Black and Lilac Squares on Vermilion', (c. 1968). (cropped) © Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust.

William Johnstone, 'Ode to the North Wind' (c. 1928-30). © The Artist’s Estate of William Johnstone.

Eduardo Paolozzi (1924 – 2005) ‘Mr Peanuts (c. 1971). © The Artist’s Estate.

William Turnbull, ‘Untitled (Head)’ (cropped) (c. 1955) © The Artist’s Estate.

‘Border Crossings’ at The McManus in Dundee spotlights Scottish artists whose bold visions and international acclaim placed them among the greats of global art history.

On our website, we delve into the artists who carried Scottish art onto the world stage: bit.ly/bordercrossi...

My @flemingartcoll.bsky.social
Scottish Art News obituary of Ian McKenzie Smith, the former director of Aberdeen Art Gallery and the city’s Director of Arts who helped transform Aberdeen’s artistic landscape.

www.flemingcollection.com/scottish_art...

We were saddened to hear of the passing of Ian McKenzie Smith (1935–2025), former Director of Aberdeen Art Gallery.

A leading figure in Scottish abstract art, he was a lifelong champion of the arts in Aberdeen and beyond.

Read @neilcooper.bsky.social's full tribute here: bit.ly/ianmckenzies...

Born in Poland, raised in Orkney and now based in Glasgow, artist Adela Kałuzińska’s first solo show traces the relationships between landscape, memory and cultural identity 💫

Read Lena Kammerer’s interview with the artist on our website here: bit.ly/adelakauzisk...

Ukrainian-Scottish artist Mary Lydon talking about her artwork after receiving the Fleming Collection Emerging Scottish Artist of the Year award at Scotland House, London.

Fleming Collection director Theo Albano left, and Ukrainian-Scottish artist Mary Lydon , right. Behind them, white tapestries with gold and black detailing made by Mary Lydon are hung on the wall.

We had brilliant evening with artist Mary Lydon, recipient of this year’s Fleming Collection Emerging Scottish Artist of the Year Award 🏆

Read more about Mary's work here: bit.ly/marylydonart

Lachlan Goudie, ‘Rig’. © the artist.

Lachlan Goudie, ‘Yew Tree’. © the artist. (cropped)

Lachlan Goudie, ‘HMS Belfast’. © the artist.

Lachlan Goudie, ‘The Forest of Abbery Saint Bethans’. © the artist. (cropped)

Britain’s industry can feel at odds with its pastoral beauty, but artist @lachlangoudie.bsky.social sees deep connections.

His #fromtheforesttotheforge exhibition runs 30 Oct–22 Nov at The Scottish Gallery, Edinbugh.

Happy Halloween! 🎃

In Greek myth, King Lycaon serves human flesh to Zeus. Enraged, Zeus turns him into a wolf, one of the first werewolf legends.

In Lycaon’s Cooks, artist Paul Reid imagines the kitchen staff facing the grisly task of preparing the meal 🍲

Robin Gillanders, Ian Hamilton Finlay Little Sparta (1995). Reproduced by permission of Robin Gillanders.

Today would have been Scottish poet, writer, artist, and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay’s 100th birthday 🥳

We dedicated the latest issue of Scottish Art News to Hamilton Finlay and his legacy in Scottish art 📰

You can read the magazine for free online here: bit.ly/ianhamiltonf...

Our Young People’s Art Competition 2025 is open! 🎨

Categories: Under 11s • 11–16s • School class project

Prizes: £100 art voucher + book for runners-up

Deadline: 28 Nov 2025

Get inspired: flemingcollection.co.uk / Art UK

Lucy also did the part of the interior of Mono in Glasgow depicting Eno saying Optimism!

Moving Panorama (Kärntner Bar), 2025 Wooden and metal structures, train furniture, glass, textile, motor, acrylic, and oil on canvas, Train carriage, / Painted panorama drum diameter 150 cm. Courtesy of Galerie Buchholz Berlin/Cologne/New York, Lucy McKenzie, Orchestrion, fjk3—Contemporary Art Space, 2025. Photo: Lisa Rastl

Duchamp Mannequin (1938), 2025. Fiberglass mannequin, clothing, wig, electric lamp, Courtesy of Cabinet Gallery, London/// Monumental Street Lamp / (1938) Duchamp Mannequin Sketches, 2017–2024 Oil on wood, metal, glass, and light, Courtesy of Cabinet Gallery, London Lucy McKenzie, Orchestrion, fjk3—Contemporary Art Space, 2025. Photo: Lisa Rastl

Mural for Cromwell Place (Francis Bacon’s Studio), 2024 Oil and acrylic on canvas 600 × 300 cm Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York and Cabinet, London

Anonymous Youth, Donatello John the Baptist 1.1., Donatello John the Baptist 2, 2019 Oil on fiberglass plastic. Donatello John the Baptist 1.2., 2019, Courtesy of Galerie Buchholz Berlin/Cologne/New York. Karusellorgel [carousel organ], Wiener Prater, Karl Soukup for Fa. Stiller, 1931/32 Collection of the Wien Museum, Vienna. Lucy McKenzie, Orchestrion, fjk3—Contemporary Art Space, 2025. Photo: Lisa Rastl

This week we're spotlighting Lucy McKenzie, a Glasgow-born, Brussels-based artist.

McKenzie often employs the illusionistic trompe l’oeil technique, painting so realistically that it literally ‘deceives the eye’.

Her current solo exhibition, Orchestrion, is at Franz Josefs Kai 3, Vienna now.

✨ Who’s shaping the future of Scottish craft?

Meet the emerging makers celebrated in this year’s Inches Carr Craft Awards, from silversmith Scott Smith to textile artist Erin McQuarrie.

bit.ly/scotlandcraf...

We are thrilled to announce that Mary Lydon is the recipient of our Emerging Scottish Artist of the Year Award! 🏆

Lydon is a Glasgow-based artist from Ukraine whose powerful work processes collective trauma and war while safeguarding Ukrainian and Scottish cultural heritage.

This week we're spotlighting Matthew Arthur Williams, a Glasgow-based artist whose practice incorporates photography, moving image, and sound.

His latest exhibition, In Consideration of Our Times, is on view at Stills, Edinburgh until 18 October 2025.

Sir William Quiller Orchardson (1832-1910), ‘Ophelia’ (c. 1874). The Fleming Collection. Ophelia sits sadly on the edge of a river. Her white dress is scattered with flowers, foreshadowing her death as described in Shakespeare's play.

Sir William Quiller Orchardson's 1874 painting, Ophelia, is a prime example of his skill in blending literary narrative with psychological drama.

See the painting at @sainsburycentre.bsky.social's Eyewitness exhibition until 17 May, 2026 🥀

The 2025 Folkestone Triennial, How Lies the Land?, brings a distinctly Scottish perspective to this landmark exhibition of contemporary art.

Susan Mansfield talks with curator Sorcha Carey about Scottish artists, new commissions, and the stories shaping Folkestone.

👉 bit.ly/howliestheland

Leah Moodie, 'Self Portrait in a Vintage Top' (2025). © the artist. A portrait of a woman with blue hair and a floral top, framed by delicate painted blossoms, her arms raised gracefully above her head.

Leah Moodie, 'I got lost in my own thoughts' (2024). © the artist. A hand pins a sheer blue cloth with a butterfly resting on it, casting the shadowy silhouette of a figure beneath.

Leah Moodie, 'Matinee' (2024). © the artist. A figure in striped shirt shines a flashlight toward a playful dog, casting bold blue and yellow light across the scene.

Leah Moodie, 'Did you get what you came for?' (2024). © the artist. A blue-tinted face gazes out from behind blinds as a dog bares its teeth below, framed by a fluttering moth and leafy green plant.

This week we're spotlighting Scottish contemporary artist #LeahMoodie 🎨

Moodie creates dreamlike, emotionally charged scenes on translucent PVC shower curtains, giving her work a ghostly, layered quality 💫

A man and a woman in rustic 19th-century clothing share a warm, playful moment inside a dimly lit cottage. The man stands leaning toward the seated woman, smiling and touching his chin thoughtfully, while she looks up at him with a broad smile. A basket with scraps of fabric sits at her feet, and domestic items surround them, creating a cosy interior scene.

A pencil and coloured drawing of two men standing side by side against a white background. One figure on the left is outlined in fine pencil with minimal shading, while the man on the right is more solidly rendered in a black suit with a yellow shirt. Both have halos of light blue and yellow around their heads. Loose red, yellow, and orange scribbled lines swirl around them, adding energy to the composition.

Edward Atkinson Hornel (1864-1933), 'Children at Play' (cropped) (c.1893). The Fleming Collection. Children laugh and play on a sunny hillside, surrounded by bright flowers and lush greenery.

A painted portrait of a bald man with glasses, dressed in a dark suit and red tie, seated with arms crossed against a richly coloured red and brown background.

Turn that frown upside down – it’s National Smile Day! 😁

Here are some timeless smiles captured on canvas in The Fleming Collection 🎨

‘Lochaber No More’ captures the human cost of the Highland Clearances.

Today, our Director Theodore Albano is at Saoghal Mòr Farsaing, the Outer Hebrides Emigration Conference, exploring how artists have portrayed emigration.

If you’re attending, please come and say hello!

This week we're spotlighting Scottish contemporary artist Karla Black 🫧

Her practice blurs the line between painting, sculpture, and performance, questioning what art can be and where beauty is found ✨

Artists Helen Douglas and Jake Harvey invite viewers into a “compressed universe” in their exhibition 'Meeting Point: within the Lewisian' at Taigh Chearsabhagh, North Uist.

Read writer @gregchthomas.bsky.social review here 👉 bit.ly/meeting-poin...

William McTaggart (1835-1910), 'The Village, Whitehouse', (c. 1875). The Fleming Collection.

Anne Redpath (1895–1965), 'Frosty Morning, Trow Mill', (c. 1936). The Fleming Collection.

Sir David Murray (1849-1933), 'Woodsman and Horse in an Autumn Landscape', (c. 1886). The Fleming Collection.

Adam Thomson (1885-1976), 'Haystacks and Woodland', (c. unknown). Ⓒ The Artist's Estate. The Fleming Collection.

It’s feeling autumnal outside 🍂

Here are a few works from the Fleming Collection to match the season 🍁