Interesting Inverleith and beautiful botanics

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Inverleith House, a mansion built in the 1770s, sits in what is now the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. From 1960 to 1984 it served as the first home of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, a wonderful space that, alas, became too small for the rapidly growing collection.

The modern art collection moved to new premises in 1984, and the House is now an independent, publicly funded gallery presenting a continuous programme of temporary exhibitions by invited artists. It is run and maintained by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and is a Flexibly Funded client organisation of Creative Scotland, with additional funding raised in support of the programme from charitable and commercial sources. Exhibitions are originated in-house, and often feature an artist's first showing in Scotland or the UK. It’s an ideal building for this purpose, for its rooms are small enough to provide intimate exhibition spaces, yet sufficiently numerous to form suites for larger shows.

One of the current exhibitions, William McKeown (1962–2011) (until 8 July) celebrates the work of the Tyrone-born artist who was based in Edinburgh at the time of his early death. His deceptively simple paintings positively glow across the rooms, minimalist studies in light, luminosity, and gradations of colour and tone. Much of his work comprised an investigation into how to see and feel air and light, and the relationship between art and nature. Some of the works are almost monochrome, delicate and deep, near and distant. They repay unhurried contemplation.  

On the face of it, the other exhibition, Remarkable Trees - Photographs from the Collection of George Paxton (1850-1904) (also until 8 July) could hardly be more different. Paxton was a brewer by trade, but also an accomplished amateur photographer and botanist, with enough time to indulge his passion for both the new medium and a personal study of the trees that meant so much to him. A selection of his photographs, mainly taken in Scotland, are being shown here for the first time in public, printed from glass plate negatives donated to the Garden.

The exhibition labels use information that Paxton himself wrote on the envelopes in which he stored each negative (augmented with additional information where absolutely necessary). His images complement those of McKeown’s, for both men were looking deeply into nature, determined to see and appreciate aspects beyond the everyday glance and the surface image.  

Also showing at Inverleith House is the only film ever completed by the American painter Agnes Martin (1912-2004): Gabriel, made in 1976.  And very appropriately, recently the National Galleries of Scotlandand Tate jointly acquired three of her paintings through the d'Offay Donation, with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh itself also shows exhibitions, both in its John Hope Gateway and the Garden – but this must be left for another review…