N E W S L E T T E REDINBURGH DECORATIVE & FINE ARTS SOCIETY

AUGUST 2016ISSUE 18 1

A Member Society of the Nat ional Associa t ion of Decorat ive and Fine Ar t s Societ ies

Lester Borley, formerly The Director of the National Trust for Scotland, and a longtime EDFAS member, has chosen his favourite picture from the NTS collection at Fyvie Castle.

Clearly, the Batoni portrait of Colonel William Gordon, purchased on his Grand Tour, is the iconic Fyvie picture, and a mouth-watering collection of Raeburn is hard to resist. But of all the collection, it is the very early Sir Thomas Lawrence portrait of Susanna, Countess of Oxford, which attracts me back to Fyvie. Painted in 1789 when he was twenty and Lady Oxford was sixty-one, it helped Lawrence make his mark as the only real successor to Romney as a portrait painter. Lawrence went on to paint royalty, and a whole gamut of generals who had fought with Wellington, and which now adorn the walls of the Waterloo Chamber in Windsor Castle.

Lady Oxford, daughter of William Archer of Welford, Berkshire, married Edward, the fourth Earl of Oxford, in 1751. At her death, the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ of November 1804 said of her: ‘to the poor she was a liberal benefactress, and her death will long be regretted by everyone who knew her’. Who can resist a picture of such a benign lady who has chosen her terrier to be her companion forever?

My Favourite Picture…

Susanna, Countess of Oxford by Sir Thomas Lawrence. By courtesy of The National Trust for Scotland

Do you have a favourite picture, building, garden or sculpture that you would like to share with EDFAS members? If so, please contact the Editor.

This year’s Society Lecture, given by Professor Murdo MacDonald, was about Sir Patrick Geddes, who had a profound effect on conservation and planning, not just in Edinburgh but also throughout the world. EDFAS has supported the Scottish Buildings Preservation Trust with its project to restore Riddle’s Court to create the Patrick Geddes Centre.

Riddle’s Court in the Lawnmarket is a document in stone, plaster and paint portraying over four centuries of Scotland’s history. Work started on site last summer to repair the building’s precious fabric and sympathetically adapt and upgrade it as the Patrick Geddes Centre for Learning.

Even before the Patrick Geddes Centre opens to the public in autumn 2017, the first learning activities are being delivered. The next event will be a Study Day on Mansion houses of the Royal Mile held on 30 September 2016 at Moray House, Edinburgh. This event will explore the high status buildings of the Canongate and compare them to Riddle’s Court.

For more information about any aspect of the Riddle’s Court project, please phone on 0131 220 1232 or to book on a Hard Hat Tour or the Study Day, please go towww.patrickgeddescentre.org.uk where you will find the Eventbrite booking page links.

RIDDLE’S COURT & PATRICK GEDDESAfter the EDFAS Society Lecture our President, Lady Rosebery, gave a vote of thanks for the lecture as well as presenting EDFAS’s donation to The Scottish Historic Buildings Trust. She was a most appropriate person to do this as she had spent many weeks at Riddle’s Court when in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Fringe in the early 1950s. She was at Art College in Oxford and very involved with Oxford University Dramatic Society and gave us a highly amusing account of those days at the Fringe. She recalled sleeping in the lovely painted room upstairs, watching mice picking up crumbs under the camp beds. The food budget was 23/- per week per head. Neil Rosebery, OUDS backstage crew member, was the electrician. Later, in 1954, they became engaged. Living locally, he brought in fruit cake and huge lumps of cheese from Dalmeny. Frank Dunlop, who went on to be the Director of the Edinburgh Festival, produced Moliere. Maggie Smith was amongst those who slept on the floor at Riddle’s Court. She was at the Oxford Playhouse Theatre School and a showstopper at her first Fringe production. Finally, Lady Rosebery said she did indeed understand the premise under Patrick Geddes’s dictum: learn by living – and that was ‘from the horse’s mouth!’.

After reminiscing about the Fringe at Riddle’s Court, she went on to present a cheque on behalf of EDFAS to the National Museum of Scotland for the development of the new Fashion and Style Gallery, another appropriate gesture because Lady Rosebery had been a Trustee of the museum for some years.

Patrick Geddes lived from 1854 to 1932. He coined the phrase, ‘Think global, act local’ and his life’s work involved empowering communities to change for the better. His ideas and approaches to the environment, conservation and learning can stimulate fresh responses to some of today’s most pressing issues. Patrick Geddes inscribed ‘Vivendo Discimus’ (by living we learn) above the entrance to Riddle’s Court when he converted the building to a University Hall at the end of the nineteenth century. The vision encapsulated by this phrase is no less than a call to radically rethink how, when and why we learn, integrating creativity and action into learning. This approach informs the Patrick Geddes Centre, which will be a base for debate and discussion and offer a distinctive programme of active learning for all ages.

Professor Murdo MacDonald, Gail Guest, Lady Rosebery, Dr Gordon Rintoul of NMS, and Una Richards, SHBT

EDINBURGH DECORATIVE & FINE ARTS SOCIETYNEWSLETTER · AUGUST 20162

EDFAS Tour to the West Midlands

BURSARY

We assembled in Birmingham for this year’s most enjoyable and varied Tour. We set off to Worcester stopping en route at Hanbury Hall c1700, a lovely mellow brick building with recently restored gardens in the period style. In Worcester we stayed in an old converted glove factory now a hotel which was very comfortable and which looked after us very well. The next day we visited Eastnor Castle c1810, an austere castle-style house with wonderfully rich gothic interiors equipped with much of the furniture especially designed for the house. At lunch, we enjoyed wine tasting at the Three Choirs Vineyard, and later we attended an uplifting Choral Evensong at Tewkesbury Abbey. The next day we were given a guided tour of Madresfield Court, a multifaceted medieval house with later alterations, as well as significant Arts and Crafts additions. It was chosen as a suitable residence for the Royal Family, should they have had to leave London during WW2. The next day we visited Whitley Court, now a ruin and its church c1735, as well as Harvington Hall, mainly Elizabethan, with six priest holes. We also saw round Ragley Hall, a Palladian mansion with Georgian interiors. In 1969 the 8th Marquis commissioned Graham Rust to paint a spectacular mural on the north staircase and hall, depicting his family and friends in an architectural setting.

This was followed by Croome Park, a Robert Adam house with a Capability Brown landscape now being restored by the National Trust. On our final evening we had a delicious dinner at the Royal Worcester Porcelain Museum, whose archives are being restored by Heritage Volunteers from the Malvern Hills DFAS. Their Leader, Lady Nicholls, talked to us about their work and showed us some examples of the cleaned and repaired pattern books. On our last morning we visited the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, which had a good collection of Old Masters as well as fine Dutch and Impressionist collections. Our thanks to Neil, his wife Sarah and our coach driver Jeff for a very memorable time.

DONATIONS You will see from the list of donations that EDFAS has been able to support a variety of organisations primarily with the Gift Aid tax rebate received on subscriptions. Further support has been in conjunction with various visits in our events programme. Thirdly, additional Young Arts support has been possible from members’ direct contributions when renewing their Society membership.

University of Edinburgh (College of Art Bursaries) .........£4,000

Silver Cloth (NMS) ................................................................£300

Central Mosque ....................................................................£100

WHALE Arts project ..........................................................£1,000

Leith School of Art ............................................................£1,000

Scottish Historic Buildings Trust ......................................£6,000

NMS (Society Lecture + Islam visit) ................................£1,500

St Andrew’s Ambulance .....................................................£350

NGS (Melville + Print Room Visits) ...................................£1,500

Friends of RSA (Schools Workshops) .................................£250

TOTAL DONATIONS ........................... £16,000

EDFAS had another Spring trip this year, again ably led by Neil Hynd. Below is a précis of the tour, based on contributions from several members of the group.

Above: Orlaigh Murray, the recipient of our first College of Art Bursary,

is pictured here with Committee member

Anne Mason Brown at her degree show. Orlaigh studied jewellery design,

but plans to go on to further education to study

Art Therapy.

Above: Harvington HallAbove right: Madresfield CourtRight: Eastnor Castle

Right: Marianne McLennan, who was awarded an

EDFAS bursary, is pictured here with Committee

Member Neil Hynd as well as Marianne’s son, at her

degree show. Marianne studied graphic design.

Thank you to Grace Durham, our indefatigable Editor,for another excellent edition of the Newsletter.Gail Guest, Chairman

3EDINBURGH DECORATIVE & FINE ARTS SOCIETYNEWSLETTER · AUGUST 2016

WHALE ARTS

VOLUNTEERING

Whale Arts is a terrific community-led arts charity in Wester Hailes which the committee has selected for EDFAS to support. Grace Durham and Filly Nicol visited the centre in March to see the work that The team do and the courses they run so we could choose which projects

EDFAS would be involved with.

We were hugely impressed by their dreams and schemes for stretching the vistas and imaginations of the children of Wester Hailes. The staff run courses for children from six months to 18 years, engaging with really young children in the hope of inspiring them to want to stay in touch. They work with the local schools in school hours and run out of school and holiday courses. We saw a splendid morning’s course of school children making dinosaurs and diverse creatures with the view to creating a play or tableau at the end of the morning. All the children were totally absorbed and loving it. The team also take children into the museums and galleries in Edinburgh: many of these children never having been into Edinburgh proper before.

EDFAS supported the following projects:

• Easter Arts - where children are invited to ‘get creative with eggs, paint and glitter’• Mini gardens - children making tiny fairy gardens or dinosaur lands• A trip to the Festival Theatre to explore the costumes and scenery backstage at the theatre• Easter crafts - making fabric craft creations to take home• Creative adventures: working with ‘glow in the dark’ paints

Below is a selection from several ongoing projects that WHALE runs: • ‘Creative Adventures’ is a multi-art project for young people with Additional Support Needs

and their families. Staff work with dance, music, art and drama.

• ‘Street Arts’ takes interpretive art into the streets to the young people out there who often have nothing to do and nowhere to go. This is challenging for all concerned and WHALE works with the Edinburgh Festival Theatre on this project.

• ‘Generate’ helps 10 - 18 year olds ‘form a band, write lyrics and create songs, perform live and record your tracks’.

EDFAS is proud to support these imaginative projects.

CHURCH TRAILSA Church Trail is a two-sided A4 questionnaire for children (aged 8-12) with an answer sheet for accompanying adults. The aim of a NADFAS church trail is to encourage children to explore a church in order to inspire an interest in the art, architecture, history and furnishings found there. Volunteers who create a church trail have the chance to discover more about our rich heritage, to expand their knowledge and learn new skills. Church trails are manageable, achievable, affordable and can be made relatively quickly by a small team of volunteers. They leave a legacy in churches for children and accompanying adults to enjoy for years to come.We have completed only one church trail in Edinburgh and I would very much like to work towards completing more: there are so many interesting churches in the city. If you would like to become involved in this very rewarding volunteering project, please get in touch with Jen McDowell: jjmcdowell@ymail.com

National Museum of Scotland – EDFAS volunteers help preserve Silver CollectionOne of the most fascinating items to be displayed in the new NMS galleries in Chamber Street is the travelling service of the Emperor Napoleon’s sister, Princess Pauline Borghese. Supplied by Napoleon’s official goldsmith for Pauline’s marriage to Prince Camillo Borghese in 1803, it contains

more than 100 silver-gilt items carefully stacked and arranged inside a wooden case. The items were cleaned in preparation for the new display and were stored inside Pacific Silver Cloth storage bags until they were required. The expensive conservation cloth was purchased with money donated by EDFAS and the bags were stitched by EDFAS volunteers.

EDINBURGH DECORATIVE & FINE ARTS SOCIETYNEWSLETTER · AUGUST 20164

It is said that moving house is one of life’s more stressful experiences. However, EDFAS members managed to change their long established lecture venue for a new one with the minimum of fuss and were able to continue to enjoy the varied programme of lectures on offer at Central Hall Tollcross starting again in the New Year with James Bolton’s excellent lecture on Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-1865). James eloquently described this action man of many talents, vision, application and charisma, the mastermind of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and a true colossus of his time. With the saucy title of Great Tarts in Art, the next lecture captured the attention of the audience as Linda Smith skilfully detailed the scandals and anecdotes of some of history’s most notorious mistresses and courtesans. We thank Linda not only for a lecture full of social history, but for her light hearted look at changing attitudes to sexual morality down the ages which kept members alert as well as entertained.

In March we welcomed back to Edinburgh Sandra Pollard to deliver her lecture on Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938). During her life Lady Ottoline, a wonderfully flamboyant and eccentric aristocrat, lived on a very grand scale. With her gift for friendship, she was a true patroness of the arts, introducing young and struggling artists to the many wealthy and influential people she knew in London. Even when those who enjoyed her hospitality most abused her generosity, she appeared never to lose her will to share her passion for art and literature.

In April Colin Bailey’s lecture on Catherine the Great and the Formation of The Hermitage Collection emphasised the fact that she is known as one of the world’s foremost collectors filling her palaces with an abundance of dazzling pieces of rarity and beauty, including paintings, porcelain, gold, silver and jewels. For this lecture Colin concentrated on how she formed her art collection by hiring skilled connoisseurs to source as many of the very best pictures money could buy to leave a legacy of staggering proportions.

Following our recent trend of introducing new areas of art and artists to our lecture series, we invited Eveline Eaton to speak on Expressionism - Emotion versus Intellect. This well presented lecture included references to members of the Blue Rider Group, Die Brucke, Kandinsky and others. Although many of the names were unfamiliar, Eveline brought their art to life by way of her excellent images, promoting many to recall the visual impact of a NGS 2012 Edinburgh exhibition which included works by Kandinsky.

In June we ended the current season with William Beckford (1760-1844) Patron of Silversmiths by Tim Schroder. Being immensely rich, William Beckford was an obsessive collector and in particular of new silver, often made to his own designs and of astonishingly high quality. Rather like marmite, you either loved or hated the items he commissioned, but I am sure you agree the detail and workmanship had to be admired.

The new programme of lectures will commence on Tuesday 11th September when Sally Hoban will talk about the Art of Enamelling. Lectures will continue to be held in Central Hall Tollcross until further notice. In the meantime, I confirm the committee will keep you up to date about our future venue plans. After our December lecture on Islam and The Mosque, members visited the King Fahd Mosque and Islamic Centre of Edinburgh. Designed by Dr. Basil Al Bayati, the architecture combines traditional Islamic features with some Scots baronial style. The main hall holds over a thousand worshippers with women praying in the balcony overlooking the hall. This was followed by a talk in the nearby National Museum of Scotland on the revival of interest in Islamic Art.

We were lucky to be able to organise our February visit to the Print Room at the NGS before it closes as part of the recently announced NGS refurbishment plan. The Print Room houses an extensive collection of prints and drawings by Scottish Artists and members were able to view works by Ramsay, Wilkie and MacTaggart amongst others.

On a bright sunny day in April a group travelled to Perthshire for a visit to the Library of Innerpeffray followed by Megginch Castle.

The historic library at Innerpeffray near Crieff (above left), houses more than 5,000 books and is the oldest free public lending library in Scotland. Member Maureen Toft remembered visiting the library with her grandparents aged 10 and was delighted to find their names recorded in the Visitors’ Book. Do go if you are in the area. (www.innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk)

Megginch (left), a 15th century turreted castle, has been in the Drummond family since 1664. Warmly welcomed by the present owner, The Hon Mrs Drummond-Herdman hosted a delicious lunch followed by a tour of the house and gardens.

Jean Bareham’s Walking Tours of Royal Mile Gardens to explore hidden gardens behind the towering tenements proved to be very popular with members, particularly the picturesque Dunbar’s Close next to Canongate Kirk (left).

A Midsummer Cocktail Party held on the top floor of the New Club on the 23rd June – EU Referendum Day. With its spectacular view over Princes Street Gardens and up to the Castle, members relaxed in the evening sunshine while the votes were being counted before the momentous result.

I want to end with a vote of thanks to Pilla Scott Moncrieff who is retiring as Vice Chairman of the Society after the AGM in October. Pilla has masterminded a host of

interesting events, including her inspired Mosque visit earlier this year. Her continued support of the Society by organising our forthcoming visit to new NMS galleries on the 26th October is much appreciated.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this edition of the Newsletter and on behalf of the Committee, look forward to welcoming you all to our new lecture and events programme.

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

EDINBURGHDECORATIVE& FINE ARTSS O C I E T Y

Edinburgh Decorative and Fine Art SocietyA Member Society of the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies

President: The Countess of Rosebery

Chairman: Lady Fiona Campbell Tel: 01721 760252 chairman@edfas.co.uk

Vice Chairman & Visits Secretary: Mrs Gail Guest Tel: 0131 556 3678 vicechairman@edfas.co.uk

EDFAS is a charity registered in Scotland (No. SC039651)

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Edinburgh Decorative and Fine Art SocietyA Member Society of the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies

President: The Countess of Rosebery

Chairman: Mrs Gail Guest Tel: 0131 556 3678 chairman@edfas.co.uk

Vice Chairman: Miss Anne Mason Brown Tel: 0131 225 1080 vicechairman@edfas.co.uk

Editor: Miss Grace Durham Tel: 0131 225 5363 lecture@edfas.co.uk

EDFAS is a charity registered in Scotland (No. SC039651)

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