“Edinburgh was once an art desert at festival time. Yes, there were alternative comedians hiding under every manhole cover, but if you were a lover of the visual arts there was little reason to go. Until 2004, when the Edinburgh Art Festival was founded, and everything got better.” Waldemar Januszczak, The Sunday Times

In 2004 the Edinburgh Art Festival was created to ensure that the visual arts had a prominent place alongside the other summer festivals.

Produced as an insert in the Scotland on Sunday, the Edinburgh Art Festival Guide promoted 23 art spaces, galleries and museums across the city as well as articles introducing the festival, its ethos and features exploring the exhibitions making up its inaugural year.

"This is an exciting new opportunity for Scotland and I am delighted at the level of interest shown in the Edinburgh Art Festival, both from the partners already involved and by the wider arts community. It's a really positive start from which to build our ambitions. This first year will allow all of us involved to get a real sense of the possibilities and help us shape a Festival which demonstrates the international quality of Scotland's talent." Graham Berry, Scottish Arts Council
 

Our second festival edition brought together exhibitions and events at 34 venues across Edinburgh, from the National Galleries of Scotland to artist-led spaces such as The Embassy. Alongside this programme were off-site and special projects including Cai Guo-Qiang: Black Rainbow, Explosion Project for Edinburgh, where the artist created an black rainbow explosion over Edinburgh Castle to launch the festival, commissioned by the Fruitmarket Gallery.


 

Our third festival edition ran from 27 July - 3 September 2006 and included exhibitions in 29 museums, galleries and artist run spaces throughout the city. The festival highlighted the quality and diversity of work being exhibited in Edinburgh, from works of the great masters such as Canaletto and Van Gogh to contemporary shows, artist talks and workshops.

Our fourth festival edition ran from 26 July - 2 September 2007 and included over 30 exhibtions in museums, galleries and artist-run spaces throughout Edinburgh. The festival had a wide range of art on show including the Dean Gallery's Picasso on Paper and the National Museum of Scotland's Picasso Fired with Passion, Edinburgh Printmakers' exhibition of work by William Kentridge and The Fruitmarket Gallery's Alex Hartley show. There was also an extensive series of special events based at our Information Station at Stills and a programme of artist talks and workshops across our partner galleries 

Our fifth festival edition ran from 31 July – 31 August 2008 and included a choice of more than 130 exhibitions and events ranging from Impressionism & Scotland, the imaginary worlds of international artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller and 20 years of Tracey Emin.