Fleming at 50: Radicals, Pioneers and Rebels

Artists from the Fleming Collection

The Fleming collection is widely deemed the most important private collection of Scottish painting. On its 50th anniversary, the London-based foundation will stage two exhibitions in Scotland, including this show at the Fine Art Society in Edinburgh. Focusing on paintings from the 19th and early 20th centuries that have challenged the status quo, the exhibition includes some of the most well-known works in the collection. The Last of the Clan (1865) was exhibited at the Royal Academy by Thomas Faed, bringing the destruction of traditional clan life by the Highland Clearances to the attention of the art world in the British capital. Similarly, John Watson Nicol’s Lochaber No More (1883) depicts two Highland figures, lamenting their displacement from their home as the ship they are on bears them away from it. The exhibition also highlights a correspondence between the Clearances and the plight of present-day refugees and migrants with an exhibition of photographs of the Calais Jungle by Iman Tajik, an Iranian asylum-seeker who has recently graduated from the Glasgow School of Art.

The exhibition is part of the Edinburgh Art Festival; it is complemented by an exhibition of Scottish Colourist paintings from the Fleming Collection at Maclaurin Gallery, Rozelle House, Ayr (18 August–30 September). Find out more about ‘Radicals, Pioneers and Rebels’ from the Edinburgh Art Festival’s website.

Preview the exhibition below | See Apollo’s Picks of the Week here