Art News

The Royal Scottish Academy Presents the Art of Sylvia Wishart RSA

artwork: Sylvia Wishart - "Reflections II", circa 1987-92 - Oil on paper - 193 x 100 cm. - Courtesy of the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. On view in "The Art of Sylvia Wishart" until February 29th.


Edinburgh.- The Royal Scottish Academy is pleased to present “The Art of Sylvia Wishart”, on view at the academy through February 29th. Sylvia Wishart was a painter of terrific ability. Her location in Orkney and subsequent distance from her peers in the ‘art world’ has meant that her career has been somewhat overshadowed. However, her place in the story of Scottish painting is if the utmost importance, as a teacher, aesthete and artist of the highest calibre. The Orkney landscape takes pride in this exhibition which concentrates on Sylvia’s two Orkney homes; North House, her cottage on Hoy, renovated from a near ruin and Heatherybraes, her home on mainland Orkney, above Stromness. Sylvia spent much of her career between Orkney and Aberdeen, where she was a lecturer in the Painting and Drawing Department at Gray’s School of Art. In 1967, she took rental of North House at Rackwick, falling in love with the cottage and renovating it back to an inhabitable state. This venue becomes her home and studio and many of the works produced here are expressive oils on bare board. Paint is applied in a thick heavy impasto and pared down to the simplest, yet incredibly sophisticated, mark-making.