Thoroughly Modern Women
Until August 28; Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

Nearly two years ago, in its exhibition, Modern Women, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery invited visitors to point out which prominent 20th century Scottish women were missing from the permanent collection. By the end of the show’s run, the suggestions book was crammed with 655 different names.

This was no token consultation. Armed with popular opinion, the gallery leapt into action and is now the proud new owner of 14 new portraits, displayed together for the first time in Thoroughly Modern Women.

It’s a rare feeling to know that as ordinary members of the public we can play a significant role in shaping our national collections. The collections seem so static; historically defined. The legacies of past generations, you see them topped up occasionally with a gift in lieu of inheritance tax, or a high-profile commission arising out of mystery meetings behind closed doors.

This time we wrote the shopping list and the Portrait Gallery obliged. The queens and princesses of yesteryear are joined by a distinguished array of today’s top women – journalists, composers, lawyers, writers and artists. Assembled around the walls of a single room, the exhibition’s uncommonly zesty design throws the gallery’s peely-wally décor into sharp relief.

Half of the works are by men and half by women, the two more or less lined up facing each other. The difference is noticeable. The works by male artists often cast their subject as virtuous female stereotypes, like Eric Robertson’s pencil portrait of artist Mary Newbery Sturrock, a Celtic Revival angel if ever there was one. The writer, Lady Margaret Sackville, stares heavenward in her oil painting, her sweet pink cheeks surely far from thoughts of profundity.

Clifton Pugh’s oil painting of Naomi Mitchison is a welcome exception, the writer’s fluffy grey hair and big woollen jumper doing nothing to lessen that feisty look she’s giving you.

The images by women dispense with that gender-conscious edge, presenting their subjects with a great gust of honesty. Some look surprisingly vulnerable, such as Jennifer McRae’s curiously boy-like portrait of Kirsty Wark, and Joan Eardley’s beautiful self-portrait in which every hovering brushmark carries the same riveting blend of hesitancy and assuredness that you’d find in a late Rembrandt self-portrait.

While 13 of the portraits were acquisitions, Victoria Crowe’s painting of composer, Thea Musgrave, was specially commissioned by the gallery. The composer’s figure is densely worked, creating a sense of focussed concentration which contrasts with the light-filled bravura of the adjacent panel, symbolic of Musgrave’s musical creations.

Over in the corner, Glenys Barton’s ceramic low relief sculpture of Helena Kennedy QC sits like a cartoon buddha, half religious icon, and half sex pot. She’s most definitely a thoroughly modern woman.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 02.04.06