City Art Centre
Dressed to Kill: Fashion, Costume and Dress in Scottish Art
15 June – 29 September 2013
Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, The Black Hat, 1914, courtesy City Art Centre, Edinburgh
Dressed to Kill showcases how Scottish artists have captured fashion, costume and dress over the years, from the late 17th century to the present day. The exhibition includes portrayals of a whole range of different types of costume, from mundane everyday working clothes to the most elaborate fashionable dress. There is an inevitable focus on the depiction of women and women’s costume but other sections will look at men’s clothing, children’s costume, headgear, working clothes and uniforms.
Central to the exhibition are two iconic Colourist portraits, J.D. Fergusson’s The Blue Hat and F.C.B. Cadell’s The Black Hat, both showing young women dressed up to the nines in the height of Edwardian fashion. The exhibition will also include works by Allan Ramsay, Henry Raeburn, E.A. Hornel, John Lavery, J.H. Lorimer, John Duncan, Stanley Cursiter, John Bellany, Adrian Wiszniewski, David Williams and Moyna Flannigan.
Selected to complement Coming into Fashion, the exhibition is drawn from the City Art Centre’s collection of Scottish Art - a Recognised Collection of National Significance - and includes paintings, watercolours, drawings, prints, photographs and sculpture.
Mon–Sat, 10am–7pm
Sun, 12–7pm
Free admission
Events
16 August 2013
Fashion Show: 21st Century Kilts and Iona Crawford Fashion Show
6.30–8pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
17 August 2013
Performance: JRF Rogue Milliner and “Hustle” Dance Troupe
2pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
22 August 2013
Fashion Show: Jane Davidson - A preview of the Autumn/Winter 2013 Collections
6.45pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
24 August 2013
Performance: JRF Rogue Milliner and “Hustle” Dance Troupe
2pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
29 August 2013
Fashion Show & Pop up Shop: Jaggy Nettle DIY: A Global Collective
6.45pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
29 August 2013
A Tour for the Hearing Impaired
2pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
30 August 2013
Lecture: I’ve Bagged it!
2pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
31 August 2013
Fashion Show: Jane Gowans Vs Hayley Scanlan
2pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
31 August 2013
Children's workshop: Prints and Princesses
10:30am–12:30pm
Free with the price of an exhibition ticket (Adult £5, concessions £3.50)
Bourne Fine Art
Scottishness in Art: 1750-1980
5 July – 31 August 2013
William Hamilton RA, Mary, Queen of Scots
In ten works, this exhibition concisely explores the competing romanticism, rationalism and realism of Scottish art from 1750 – 1970. If Walter Scott created a literary idea of Scotland as the site of the romantic 'other', painters sought the images that would do the same for visual art.
The exhibition begins with William Hamilton’s c.1780 portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, the archetype of the Scottish heroine-victim. This idea of the sensuous doomed queen was latched onto by many European painters of the Romantic period - the cult of Mary Stuart even predating Scott - helping to insinuate a particular perception of Scottishness into the artistic consciousness of Europe.
An alternative idea can be seen emerging in the depictions of Scotland pioneered by Alexander Nasmyth, who adopted the Italianate style he had seen in works by Claude and applied this to the wilds of Scottish landscapes. A very different national visual lexicon extends through the anti-romantic realities expressed in the work of painters from Sir David Wilkie to the Glasgow Boys, and from Arthur Melville to John Bellany, whilst the Enlightenment portraiture of Allan Ramsay and Sir Henry Raeburn offers a pantheon of the Scottish character.
Mon–Fri, 10am–6pm
Sat, 11am–2pm (4pm during August)
Free admission