Loss of cultural institution headed off
In December 2024, our Edinburgh Branch awarded Honorary Membership of the Saltire Society to Dr Duncan Thomson, former keeper of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Dr Thomson was director of the gallery from 1982 to 1997, and has written a history of the institution.
A neo-Gothic palace bringing visitors face to face with the people who make up Scotland’s story, the gallery is well loved by locals and visitors alike. It holds portraits of key figures in history such as Mary Queen of Scots and Robert Burns, modern icons like Billy Connolly and Tilda Swinton and the work of key Scottish artists including Alexander ‘Sandy’ Moffat, whose study of Hamish Henderson and Sheila Stewart is in the Society’s collection and illustrates this page.
In the 1990s, however, the fate of the gallery seemed uncertain when the trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland unveiled plans to create a new gallery of Scottish art, potentially in the west of Scotland. The portrait gallery would close. Critics of the scheme were concerned both by the potential loss of the gallery, and the risk that Scottish art would be ghettoised if shown out of its broader European and global context.
The Society convened a public meeting at Edinburgh College of Art. Almost a thousand people came along to argue for retention of the portrait gallery. In the end, the status quo won out and the portrait gallery was further refurbished in the early 2000s.
You can read more about the campaign to save the Portrait Gallery in The Scotsman here.
