Introduction

Jim Lambie RSA, Star Dancing, 2026, sunglasses lens, lead came

Welcome to the 200th Annual Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. We hope that you will enjoy it and that you will find much that both attracts and challenges you.

This a very significant event, as our Annual Exhibition has captured art and architecture at a moment in time over each of the last 200 years, reflecting a world that has changed with the Industrial Revolution, two world wars, huge advances in medicine, science, and the birth of the internet. While past exhibitions will have been very different affairs, we can celebrate the Academy’s longstanding record in showing the very best contemporary work by living artists and architects in Scotland and further afield.

This year’s Annual Exhibition has been led by Art Convenor, Annie Cattrell RSA, and Architecture Convenor, Fergus Purdie RSA. Annie’s theme, In Time, reflects on our philosophical and physical foundations. For this, she has invited artists interested in ideas of geology and the passage of time, including Martin Creed, James Geurts, Cathie Pilkington RA and Stephen Skrynka. Sam Ainsley RSA has also produced the artwork for the external banners in this auspicious year.

Fergus is reflecting on two distinct themes: Beginning(s) and Unbuilt. For Beginning(s), architect Academicians are invited to design an imagined, alternative Academy building. Previous RSA Metzstein Discoursers have also been invited to submit work referencing the initial stages and concepts of a project under this thematic overview. The RSA Open submission for architecture focuses upon the theme Unbuilt and highlights unrealised design projects.
Victoria Crowe RSA, Holding Winter Fire, oil on linen

For this 200th presentation of the RSA Annual Exhibition, we are very pleased to have sponsorship from LGT Wealth Management as well as Culture and Business Fund Scotland. We are also thankful to Bonhams for supporting our opening reception and to all our award givers. New awards for this year include the David McClure Centenary Travel Award (funded by the artist’s family to support a period of travel for an artist); the Changing Ideas Award (championing artwork exploring urgent themes of social change); the Jack Vettriano Award (for artists who have received no formal training and recognition); and the Paisley Art Institute Award (a monetary award in recognition of the institute’s 150th anniversary).

This exhibition follows on directly from RSA New Contemporaries last month, in which we showed the best work by graduates from Scottish art schools. This Annual Exhibition features many works from past New Contemporaries exhibitors, demonstrating the Academy’s significant role in encouraging and supporting artists at the beginning and throughout their career. This is something that we have done since our foundation, and have increased over the last two hundred years, entirely independent of government funding, as we benefit from generous gifts and legacies, particularly from Academicians who entrust the RSA to continue to carry the torch for the arts in Scotland. This year we will be giving out over £230,000 in awards, scholarships and funding, plus numerous ‘in kind’ opportunities. Including income from sales, on average we currently disperse over £500,000 to artists and architects every year.

With its home in this wonderful building on Princes Street designed by William Henry Playfair RSA (often said to be among the best galleries in the world), the Academy is sometimes accused of being too Edinburgh-centric. Yet in this bicentenary year, we are staging the biggest celebration of Scottish art ever undertaken with projects around the country, from the Borders and central belt to the Highlands and the Hebrides and beyond. There are some 120 partners including galleries, museums and studios, showing their own programmes in partnership and celebration of their long-standing connections (both historic and contemporary) to the Academy. This partnership project, entitled Celebrating Together is a year-long initiative across Scotland and further afield. In addition to touring exhibitions, a special moving image programme, curated by Ronald Forbes RSA, is also travelling around the country. Academician George Donald RSA is taking a revitalised version of the Academy’s life school to venues up and down the country, accompanied by his model skeleton and easel. We are also undertaking a project to map Scotland’s built environment through the input of our architect Academicians over the past 200 years. This project will have national resonance and will be launched later in 2026.
Ronald Forbes RSA, Fugue (film still)

Our Collection is recognised as Nationally Significant by the Scottish Government and our art consultancy team works with organisations throughout the country to increase the visibility and enjoyment of contemporary Scottish art. In collaboration with Tonic Arts, we assist in the management of art collections at 42 NHS healthcare sites across Edinburgh and the Lothians – presenting and caring for art in these healthcare spaces where they can benefit the process of recovery. The Academy’s Collections are also being loaned like never before, with around two hundred works travelling to over 35 partner organisations throughout 2026.

We are very sad to report that since the last Annual Exhibition, we have lost three prominent Academicians. Dr Ian McKenzie Smith CBE PPRSA (1935-2025), served as Treasurer in 1990, Secretary from 1991 to 1998, and President of the RSA from 1998 to 2007. A memorial presentation for Ian is included within this 200th exhibition. Memorial exhibitions for Ian McCulloch RSA (1935-2026) and for Robert Steedman OBE RSA (1929-2026) will be presented in next year’s Annual Exhibition.

Since the last Annual Exhibition we have elected five new members of the Academy: artists Julie Brook, Anna Geerdes, Moyna Flannigan, and architects Denise Bennetts and Eilidh Henderson.
Jude Barber RSA (Elect), The Unruly Book, by Voices of Experience and Raising the Roof

The past year has been full of preparation for our bicentenary but it has been, in itself, filled with an extraordinary amount of activities. The most recent RSA Metzstein Discourse was given by Peter Barber last autumn, focusing on his ingenious and much-admired work in housing. It was successfully held for the first time in the new Futures Institute of the University of Edinburgh, designed by Rab Bennetts RSA. This year the discourse is scheduled to be delivered in late September 2026 by architect Amanda Levete RA, who has recently completed the renovations and extensions to the Paisley Art Institute.

The Academicians’ Gallery, our year-round space for exhibiting and selling artwork by Academicians, continues apace holding significant exhibitions such as works by George MacPherson: The Music of Home; Modern Miniatures; Toby Paterson: A Short Guide to Towns without a Past; and David Evans: Sunday, 5pm. Looking ahead, upcoming exhibitions in this bicentennial year include Chaos and Control: Printmaking in Scotland Now; Joyce W. Cairns: A Personal Odyssey; This 26: Contemporary Scottish Art and the Academy; and Barbara Rae: Charting South.

I very much hope that you will enjoy this vast array of creative practice under one roof and look forward to the next two hundred years of Annual Exhibitions and other events at the Royal Scottish Academy.