It has been a Modern Scottish Women season! Firstly, the National Galleries of Scotland reprinted the book Modern Scottish Women: Painters and Sculptors 1885-1965, which I edited, and made it their Book of the Month for July 2026. Then the marvellous Karen Mailley of Scottish Women’s History, interviewed me about it for her Round the Studios podcast.
Modern Scottish Women: Painters and Sculptors 1885-1965
The book accompanied an exhibition I curated for the National Galleries of Scotland in 2015. The period covered ran from Fra Newbery’s appointment as Director of Glasgow School of Art in 1885, to the death of Anne Redpath in 1965. The eighty years which lay between these events saw an unprecedented number of Scottish women train and practise as artists. Forty-five painters and sculptors were featured, from Louise Annand to Doris Zinkeisen. Twenty-one contributors wrote artist entries for the book and I wrote an essay about the subject overall, looking at opportunities and challenges to become and then work as professionals, including during the First and Second World Wars. I am delighted that interest in the topic has grown and grown since it was published. The book features Dorothy Johnstone’s portrait of Anne Finlay on its cover, which is in the collection of Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums.
Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums: Purchased with the support of the National Fund for Acquisitions1983 (c) Artist’s Estate
Round the Studios Podcast
The Modern Scottish Women season continued with an appearance on the intersectional Round the Studios podcast. This was established by historian Karen Mailley and ‘explores Scotland’s history through a variety of individuals, historical events and artworks but more importantly, it will also act as a living archive capturing the voices and stories of today.’ As Karen has explained, we enjoyed a blether covering a range of topics including the impact of the Marriage Bar, Jessie M. King and Kirkcudbright’s Greengate Close and how the curatorial team selected the artists and works for the exhibition. Listen to it at this link to find out more!
Your own Modern Scottish Women Season
You can enjoy your own Modern Scottish Women season by reading the book and listening to the podcast. You can then find out about many of the artists featured in it throughout this website, including Phyllis Mary Bone, Josephine Haswell Miller and Dorothy Carleton Smyth.
