‘The best shop in London’ – Walter Sickert (1899)
Founded in 1876 by a group of like-minded art collectors, writers and editors, led by William Longman of the publishing family, The Fine Art Society specialises in Scottish and British art, design and decorative arts from the 18th century to the post-war period; its prestigious five-storey premises at 148 New Bond Street, Mayfair, was the oldest gallery in London, until its closure in 2018.
The aim was to promote classic masters and contemporary artists such as James McNeill Whistler’s An Arrangement in White and Yellow in 1883. It was Whistler who invented the concept of a solo exhibition, with evenly-spaced installations against pale walls.
In the 1880s Walter Sickert exhibited his Venetian paintings at the progressive Mayfair gallery, which he described as ‘the best shop in London’. He praised its unique ability to combine fine art and commercial enterprise, seeking and discovering the new and unconventional. By the early 20th century, the FAS showcased pioneering artists of the British Impressionist and Modern movements.
Born in 1895, Hannah Gluckstein cropped her hair and wore men’s tailored suits. Gluck held ‘one-man shows’ at the FAS in 1926, 1932 and 1937 which all opened with great acclaim. Her famous painting Medallion (1937), a dual-portrait ‘YouWe’, features the artist and her lover, Nesta Obermer. The main salon at the FAS was renamed the Gluck Room. Gluck demanded a final exhibition ‘to go out with a bang’, and the 1973 show was a spectacular success. A major retrospective in 2017 of this ground-breaking artist, critically described as ‘a remarkable genius.’
Having joined the FAS as a gallery assistant aged just 20, Andrew McIntosh Patrick became Managing Director (1975 – 2004), a period when his entrepreneurial leadership combined scholarship, originality and curatorial flair. Sharing his passion as an astute collector, the FAS became renowned for its focus on Scottish painting, the Aesthetic Movement, and Arts and Crafts Movement.
Patrick inaugurated a series of exhibitions entitled 100 Years of Scottish Painting during the Edinburgh Festival, which led in 1973 to opening a FAS branch on the city’s Great King Street. This was the Edinburgh home for almost 20 years, promoting the Scottish Colourists, the Glasgow Boys, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 20th century artists and innovative design.
The Fine Art Society is today located in a spacious glass-fronted property on Dundas Street featuring an elegant ‘drawing room’ upstairs, presenting an inspiring array of exhibitions; the gallery also publishes a range of fine art books and catalogues and runs a conservation and framing business.
‘This exhibition is a microcosm of our history: the Victorian era and its Scottish genre paintings, Romantic landscapes, Pre-Raphaelites, Arts and Crafts, Glasgow designers and British Impressionism, Modernism and Pop Art. Intermingling throughout are living artists, borrowing from the past but making it new – The Fine Art Society’s enduring commitment to rediscovery, scholarship and artistic risk-taking across generations’. – Emily Walsh, Managing Director, The Fine Art Society
This review is a brief tour around a few selected highlights from the diverse range of paintings, prints, sculpture, ceramics, textiles and furniture across the centuries, to celebrate the visionary, cultural legacy of the Fine Art Society at 150.
The Doorway by James McNeill Whistler dates from his visit to Venice in 1879 -1880. The etching depicts a narrow Venetian canal scene with a dark, recessed doorway of a weathered building, with a small bridge in the background, balconies, shutters and architectural details; human figures appear incidentally, to illustrate the life of the neighbourhood.
Whistler’s handling of line through a network of delicate etched marks suggests crumbling walls, shadows and reflections, to capture the atmospheric character of Venice. The composition feels spontaneous, yet it is carefully composed. Art historians often regard The Doorway as a masterpiece, due to its technical virtuosity with an evocative sense of place. The print transforms an ordinary city scene into a poetic study of light, texture and atmosphere, exemplifying Whistler’s belief that art should convey aesthetic harmony and mood rather than merely documented reality.
Designed by Christopher Dresser around 1890, Jug is crafted in clear glass and exemplifies his detailed approach, combining simple geometric forms with functionality (it was part of the Clutha series of glassware, made specifically for James Couper & Sons, Glasgow). The jug’s clean lines, precise proportions and restrained decoration reflect his belief that beauty should arise from utility rather than excessive ornament: a balanced handle and wide pouring lip allow the transparent glass to speak for itself. The deliberate, practical design feels strikingly ahead of its time, embodying clarity and elegance which bridges Victorian craftsmanship with early modernist ideals.
Samuel John Peploe (1871–1935) was a leading figure among the Scottish Colourists– a group of artists who brought a modern European influence to early 20th-century British painting. From 1910, after an intense period of experimentation living in Paris, Peploe and J D Fergusson created their own offshoot of fauvism, becoming known as the Rhythmists.
Roses (1911) is arranged with apparent simplicity, yet the composition is carefully balanced, transforming an everyday subject into a botanical study of elegance. Peploe’s confident brushwork and vibrant palette give the flowers a vivid presence, while the interplay of colour, shape and pattern captures the distinctive Impressionistic vision of the Scottish Colourists. The painting conveys the freshness and fleeting beauty of roses while revealing the artist’s fascination with pure colour as a structure in its own right.
While teaching at Edinburgh College of Art from 1911, Mabel Allington Royds worked alongside Peploe and J D Fergusson. Their shared interest in modern European art helped shape the revitalised artistic environment in Edinburgh.
Her painting Rooftops, Benares (1914) is a vivid and engaging view of the ancient city of Benares (Varanasi), when she and her husband Ernest Lumsden were travelling in India. This bustling scene, with crowded rooftops, narrow streets and figures woven into the fabric of everyday life, was a hallmark of her work. Rather than focusing on monumental architecture or exotic spectacle, Royds captures the rhythm of the city as a living, inhabited space. Her composition is animated by light and shadow creating a rich tapestry of forms and movement. As a painterly travelogue, it conveys the heat and vitality of one of India’s most sacred cities. Through structure, colour, and human presence, this is an affectionate interpretation of Benares rather than purely a documented record of place.
Edmund Dulac was a French-British magazine & book illustrator and stamp designer. One of his most celebrated collaborations was the decoration of the first-class smoking room for the great luxury liner The Empress of Britain (1930). Several designers were called-on to devise sumptuous interiors for the Canadian Pacific ship, built at John Brown’s, Clydebank.
Design for Carpet (1920s) was created for the first-class Cathay Lounge. Reflecting Dulac’s fascination with East Asian art, this incorporates stylised Chinese-inspired motifs, flowing ornamental patterns and decorative rhythms. Intended to complement the lounge’s red, black and gold interior scheme, the carpet contributed to a surreal vision of fantasy and exoticism. Oozing Art Deco style, the design was carefully structured as a sophisticated evocation of the Far East, to create one of the ship’s most distinctive public spaces with imagination and flair.
The Finnish designer Alvar Aalto revolutionised modern furniture for future generations, developing techniques for bending and laminating wood, particularly birch, as seen in Armchair, 1929. At a time when many designers were experimenting with steel and industrial materials, he demonstrated that wood could be used to create furniture that was modern, lightweight, and comfortable.
Armchair is an early modernist style that reflects his pioneering use of bent wood and functional design. Characterised by simple geometric form and clean lines, the chair combines practicality with a cool, aesthetic style of furniture. Aalto’s innovative use of natural materials became a cornerstone of Scandinavian design tradition for which he became renowned.
A most distinctive painter, Anne Redpath combined influences from French Post-Impressionism with a strong sense of colour, pattern and decorative design. Flowers on White Table (1950) is a characteristic example of Redpath’s mature still-lifes, exploring texture and composition. A vase of flowers, fabrics and carefully placed objects are rendered with energetic brushstrokes that create a lively surface and sense of spontaneity. Rather than striving for realism, the white table acts as a luminous backdrop against which the hand-picked garden blooms stand out. As Redpath explained, she liked to ‘put a bit of red beside a bit of green, then sit back and watch them fight it out.‘
Her still-life studies are notable for their domestic warmth and intimacy through a sophisticated orchestration of light, harmony, tone and tension; her love of ‘bright colour, gay colour’ is both visually luminous and deeply personal.
Closely associated with the British Pop Art movement of the 1960s, Gerald Laing was initially known for his paintings of celebrities, astronauts and popular culture. He later turned to sculpture, with a keen interest in movement, anatomy and the natural world, balancing contemporary influences with an appreciation of classical sculpture and craftsmanship.
Cat (1982) in bronze is a striking example of Laing’s crafted style through simplified yet expressive forms. Rather than pursuing minute detail, he emphasises the animal’s posture, balance and character, combining careful observation with streamlined modelling. Its clean contours and sense of contained energy convey the graceful poise and agility associated with feline movement, giving the work a timeless quality as a powerful sculptural statement.
A founding member of the Brotherhood of Ruralists, David Inshaw is known for highly detailed paintings that combine careful observation of the landscape with elements of symbolism and psychological narrative. His work often expresses a sense of memory, folklore and quiet drama.
Blind Man’s Bluff (1983) depicts a group of nude women engaged in the traditional party game, evoking an unsettling atmospheric mood within the domestic setting. The figures feel suspended between reality and dream, nudity as a symbolic device – vulnerable, playful, enigmatic – to explore human relationships, innocence and perception; carefully modelled like posed portraits as part of a broader ambiguous narrative. Characterised by Inshaw’s meticulous realism and allegory, this freeze-frame filmic moment in this bizarre parlour game, is a vehicle for psychological and poetic expression.
An artistic polymath, John Byrne, who died in 2023, was a playwright, screenwriter, theatre designer, painter and musician. Stylistically, his work often draws on ideas across pop culture, graphic illustration and folk art, with a strong dramatic element.
R&B (2002) reflects his characteristic blend of narrative imagery, satire and playfulness. The ‘Rhythm and Blues’ title alludes to Byrne’s personal experience of the music scene of Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles. The two animated figures, wide mouths in mid-song, are such engaging performers, their elongated arms stretching out as if jiving in a ritualistic dance. Combining portraiture with storytelling – you can almost hear the strident guitar chords – this animation image balances quirky humour with the exuberance and freedom of improvised jazz.
Ishbel Myerscough specialises in intensely observed paintings of family members, friends, and domestic life, distilling ordinary moments with psychological depth and emotion.
In a surreal manner, Kitchen Table (2021) depicts the artist’s son Fraser reclining across the family’s kitchen table. The unusual pose creates dramatic tension – an everyday homely scene transformed into something monumental and enigmatic. The boy’s pale, almost translucent body and his distant gaze contribute to the painting’s haunting stillness. While reminiscent of religious art eg. the Lamentation of Christ where the recumbent figure is laid horizontally, the underlying narrative seems concerned with themes of family, adolescence, motherly love and the passage of time.
In this serene scene with faintly devotional resonance, Myerscough’s forensic realism captures both physical presence and emotional vulnerability. The result is an intimate portrait elevated into something theatrically staged and quietly poignant.
Admired for her accomplished draughtsmanship and sensitive observation, Jennifer McRae has an ability to balance realism with expressive mark-making. Self Portrait at Work, Tuscany (2024) portrays her engaged in the art of creativity itself. A charming glimpse of the terracotta tiles and arch of a house opposite, through the window, as a fluid pale yellow wash floods the studio with a warm shimmer of sunshine.
As Jennifer recalls, ‘After the rain, a beautiful clarity of light would fill the room, highlighting every crumb of the working minutiae. It was intense, weird and wonderful.’
The focus is on the artist’s hand and her essential tools in this moment of concentration; watercolour brings a bright freshness and immediacy, while the ink drawing provides structured definition with remarkable economy. A compelling example of modern self-portraiture to evoke the authentic intensity of artistic practice.
This extraordinary, eclectic range of art and design in such a creatively-curated exhibition clearly illustrates how the Fine Art Society’s traditional and progressive outlook has been preserved over 150 years.
A well-illustrated catalogue with an introduction and description of each work is available. Images and background information can also be viewed on the website.
With thanks to Vivien Devlin for contributing this review.
