The Royal Scottish Academy at 200: 'Part of the shared lifeblood of Scottish culture'
The RSA will mark its bicentenary in 2026 with a special partnership project that will reach across Scotland and beyond, writes Sandy Wood
Back in 1826, the artists and architects who founded the Scottish Academy couldn’t have dreamed that 200 years later, in 2026, it would be recognised as the Royal Scottish Academy, that it would have remained entirely independent, and that it would still be going strong as the oldest surviving artist-run institution in Scotland.
Since it was established, the RSA has existed to support artists and architects and provide a platform for them to exhibit and promote their work to the world. It has done this through exhibiting, collecting and funding, and it has evolved with the times. Today’s RSA is a very different animal from the Victorian beast it once was. Of course, context is key to any institution’s history and identity, and key to ours are the artists who have always been at its centre. These artists and architects have also hailed from all over Scotland, connecting to places and communities far from the RSA’s spiritual home in Edinburgh. Go to any town or village across the country and you will find a connection. It could be an artwork in a collection or a local gallery, a building, a memorial or a piece of public art. It could be a painting or drawing of that place you call home, by an Academician or by one of the many thousands of artists who have exhibited in our exhibitions or been in receipt of RSA awards or scholarships.
If you pay a visit to Dunfermline, the home of many Academicians, from Sir Joseph Noel Paton RSA to Caroline Walker RSA (Elect), you’ll find work by various Academicians in the collections of OnFife on display in the Carnegie Library and Galleries (designed by Richard Murphy RSA), and taking a walk round the town you’ll find Toby Paterson RSA’s public art project, Points of Contact, and the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum designed by James Shearer RSA. Similarly, if you travel up to Orkney and hop off the ferry you can visit Sylvia Wishart RSA’s old studio, which has been transformed into the Pier Arts Centre by Reiach and Hall and Neil Gillespie RSA, then take a walk to Stromness Museum and discover Stanley Cursiter RSA’s wonderful painting, Linklater and Greig Entering Yesnaby Noust.
As we approached our bicentenary, this rich tapestry that weaves the RSA throughout Scotland, its culture and its built environment was pivotal to the project we devised, to celebrate not only the story of the institution, but how all of Scotland is part of that story.
Our audiences know that the RSA is rooted in its home at The Mound in Edinburgh – the grand neoclassical building on Princes Street where we stage an ambitious programme of exhibitions every year. This includes our Annual Exhibition – which although forced online due to Covid in 2020, has been shown every year since 1827 – and RSA New Contemporaries, a seminal showcase of graduate artists selected from Scotland’s art schools. But it also includes much more every year, and for our bicentenary year our programme takes on a special flavour, including major new exhibitions from two of our most renowned artists, Joyce W Cairns PPRSA and Barbara Rae RA RSA, plus a survey of printmaking in Scotland curated by Ade Adesina RSA, and, in Origin Stories, a unique exhibition that charts the tutor to student family tree of artist teaching practice over the last 200 years.
But for 2026 we also wanted to make sure you can celebrate the anniversary wherever you are in Scotland. So, we are reaching out past the walls of the RSA building, taking the conversation beyond Edinburgh and representing the art and architectural history, heritage and culture of the RSA across Scotland and further afield. We want to bring artists and communities together, and to build on successful projects that we already deliver, such as RSA Residencies for Scotland and major touring exhibitions which make our Collection of National Significance accessible to as many parts of the country as possible.
Having been recognised by the Scottish Government as a collection of National Significance to Scotland in 2008, the RSA has strived to tour its collections to places that have challenges in accessing it in Edinburgh. Laying the groundwork for the future, from 2024 to 2026 the touring exhibition William Gillies: Modernism and Nation travelled the length and breadth of Scotland, bringing one of Scotland’s most influential painters to new places and audiences.
To build on this, we are celebrating our 200th birthday with a year-long partnership project, RSA200: Celebrating Together, which connects to artists, galleries, museums and institutions across Scotland and beyond. With support from Museums Galleries Scotland, this is set to be the furthest reaching project ever of its type in the UK, with cultural partners coming together to celebrate with us through events, exhibitions, performances, talks and collection rehangs. Over the last five years we have been reaching out to and extending an open invitation to organisations across Scotland and beyond to take part, to celebrate their links to the RSA; to artists and architects, to award winners, scholars, or anyone with a connection to the RSA, aiming to create a national festival that celebrates Scottish art and architecture and allows everybody to be part of something special across the whole of 2026.
We’re delighted that we now have over 110 organisations involved across Scotland and beyond, from the Highlands & Islands to the Borders to the south of England, Europe and even as far afield as South Georgia in the sub-Antarctic, where a new public artwork by Michael Visocchi RSA is being unveiled. We are currently preparing to loan Michael’s work from our collections to an exhibition in his home county of Angus in 2026, and it will join more than 150 works from our collections, which can be seen as far away as Madrid with Phoebe Anna Traquair HRSA and as close to the Mound as the Fruitmarket Gallery, with Ilana Halperin RSA’s Diploma Work.
Throughout the year we will support partnership projects that shine a light on any aspect of the Academy. Highlights include a major new showcase of the architecture of Kathryn Findlay RSA at V&A Dundee, an exhibition of the sculpture of Anne Bevan RSA and Mary Bourne RSA at Inverness Art Gallery, a collaborative project celebrating Hugh MacDiarmid HRSA at Shetland Museum in partnership with the National Library of Scotland and a new residency at the Hugo Burge Foundation, which will welcome Dame Elizabeth Blackadder RSA’s Diploma Work Self Portrait with Cat.
The work of established Academicians and emerging artists will also be highlighted, with RSA Residency for Scotland artists showing new work at Taigh Chearsabhagh in Lochmaddy and the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness. Further South, a major retrospective of the work of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham HRSA can be found at Tate St Ives and to the West ScotlandCHARTS will take artworks by Academicians around schools in Argyle and Bute as part of the Argyle Collection.
Celebrating Together is also reaching pioneering places, as new partnerships have grown and evolved from the conversations we’ve been having around the country. For the very first time a collective of NHS charities are working together to create a touring exhibition of work by Academicians and award winners from regional health board and national art-in-healthcare collections. We are also endeavouring to maximise the reach of the project by developing special initiatives. Artist and filmmaker Ronald Forbes RSA has curated a programme of moving image work by 26 Royal Scottish Academicians and RSA award winners that will be screened across Scotland. Reflecting artists’ moving image practice in Scotland from the past and present, it includes work from the RSA Collection and work being made today. Plus, George Donald RSA will deliver a series of life drawing classes in 2026, bringing his knowledge, expertise and model skeleton to communities across Scotland, from Shetland to Mull and the Borders. This highlights the RSA’s history of teaching life drawing and anatomy at the Academy’s Life School at The Mound, where fine art including life drawing was taught until the formation of Edinburgh College of Art in 1908. Of course, the college’s Hunter building was designed by past president of the RSA, Sir Anthony Wheeler, just as so many of Scotland’s buildings have been designed by Academicians. To highlight this, and to help people rediscover the buildings they know and love, we are developing a survey of 200 years of Scotland’s built environment, which we’ll launch on our website during 2026.
Our bicentenary is not just about looking back; it’s also a celebration of the people and creativity that continue to shape the Academy and the cultural landscape of Scotland. Over the last 200 years RSA Academicians have evolved a connective story around Scotland that underlines a shared cultural heritage. For RSA200 we have created a project that not only represents our heritage and our history but represents what we do now, what Scottish art and architecture might be in the future, and how the RSA is involved in shaping that future. RSA200 is about a living, breathing Academy, a dynamic part of the shared lifeblood of Scotland and its culture. RSA200: Celebrating Together will connect art and architecture with people, and people with art and architecture over the whole of 2026. Wherever you might be next year, you'll never be far away from the RSA. We’re really looking forward to you all joining us for this celebration of the last 200 years, but more importantly – here’s to the next 200!
Sandy Wood is head of collections at the Royal Scottish Academy. For full details of the RSA’s 200th anniversary programme, visit www.royalscottishacademy.org
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