Convenor's Essay

Annie Cattrell RSA, IN TIME (I), acrylic and rotring inks on watercolour paper

The Royal Scottish Academy was founded on the 27^th of May 1826 at Stewart’s Rooms, Waterloo Bridge. In 1835, the Academy moved to the Royal Institution on The Mound and has been resident there between the Royal Institution (now the RSA) and the National Gallery of Scotland building since this late Georgian period. In 1911, following the National Galleries Act of 1906, the Royal Scottish Academy was given rights by Government Order – the 1910 Order – for occupancy in the RSA which was named after the Academy by right of its importance to the story of Scottish art. This central cultural and architectural locus is geologically significant in that the building itself stands on the edge of volcanic rock. The history of the substrate upon which the building stands could be understood in parallel with the dynamic formation and evolution of the RSA. The Academy’s aims and principles are embedded in its constitution, the substance of which are constantly drawn upon and interpreted by the careful governance of RSA members.

The RSA is run by artists and architects, for artists and architects. In this spirit, a complete chronological list of the over 700 Academicians and Honorary Academicians since its founding is on display in this 200^th Annual Exhibition. Also on display are two significant handwritten and bound books. Incidental Jottings includes the names of the first thirteen RSA members and the General Meeting Book (1826-30) states the main aims.
Lennox Dunbar RSA, Sudden Wave
Today, we use the revised RSA Rule Book (2014) whose aims include:
- To uphold the best practice in contemporary Scottish Art and Architecture.
- To maintain a Collection, Archive and Library relevant to the history and activities of the Academy and to make these accessible to the public.
- To encourage the support of emerging artists and architects.
- To inform national debates on a range of visual, cultural and educational issues.
The RSA’s physical foundations could also be said to evoke geological time. It is this underlying process of deep time and cyclical transformation which is at the heart of what I wanted to emphasise during the 200^th Annual Exhibition. Namely, the RSA’s continuing and ever-evolving breadth of vision and how this provides the bedrock for future generations of artists and architects to flourish.

This significant year for the RSA also coincides with the tricentenary of the birth of James Hutton, known as the ‘father of modern geology,’ in Edinburgh in 1726. In 1788 he published the Theory of the Earth, in which he proposed the term ‘unconformity’. This book ultimately challenged understandings of the formation of the Earth.

Hutton noted: ‘we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end’.
Leon Patchett, EGG I

For the 200^thAnnual Exhibition, I proposed not simply a celebration of the Academy’s evolution with reference to Hutton’s understanding of time, but to relate this to the momentum and seismic endeavours of Royal Scottish Academicians through time.

As part of this approach, I have taken the opportunity to invite five artists with strong connections to Scotland, specific locations and time. This curatorial theme and title is IN TIME. Artist-Academicians were also invited to respond to this theme if they wished.

Sam Ainsley RSA has designed the banners for the grand portico at the Princes Street entrance to the Academy. Ainsley has a history of making publicly engaged art, notably in 1984 for the opening of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

In 2011, Martin Creed was commissioned by the Fruitmarket Gallery to make Work No. 1059 for The Scotsman Steps, in Edinburgh. This comprised recladding the 104 steps in different marbles that were sourced from quarries around the world. For IN TIME, Creed’s preparatory drawings and a film about the project are shown.

Artist James Geurts is based in Australia and is exhibiting a series of artworks including EON and ZONE OF ZERO: LINE OF ZERO. CARBON TRAJECTORY. This body of work stems from research he has undertaken at the Flinders Mountain Ranges of South Australia.

Cathie Pilkington RA studied at Edinburgh College of Art and is now Keeper at the Royal Academy in London. Pilkington is showing a major installation called On the Table (2023) and a suite of new monoprints on Japanese paper entitled Jumbled Horse 1-5.

Artist and curator Stephen Skrynka built the Revelator in Clydeside during the Covid lockdown. As part of his contribution to IN TIME he has made a new sculpture, Traveller, and will hold a daylong event called UNCONFORMITY on the 30^th of May this year at the Revelator in Glasgow.
John Brown, Woodlands 2, 2026

I would like to thank the artists who applied to take part through the Open Exhibitions of Art and Architecture, the invited artists and Academicians for all making this exhibition what it is.

As convenor of Art for the 200^th Annual Exhibition, I have gratefully shared this whole experience with Fergus Purdie RSA who has convened the Architecture galleries.

The Selection and Hanging Committee have contributed wholeheartedly and unreservedly to this whole process. They are Anne Bevan, Matthew Dalziel, Helen Flockhart, Graham Fagen, Ilana Halpern, Norman McBeath, Louise Scullion and Eddie Summerton.

I would like to thank all the permanent and part time staff at the RSA for their unstinting professionalism and help. As Convenor, Amy Cameron (Exhibitions and Opportunities Manager) has been my first port of call and in this has orchestrated everything with clarity, patience and good humour.

Thanks to the McIntosh installation team for their skill and experience, they seem to effortlessly place and hang the RSA exhibitions.

It has been a real honour and privilege to undertake convening the 200^th Annual Exhibition.
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