Gallery 01 - Collecting Art

Collecting Art

For over 130 years we have been collecting art for Aberdeen. This publicly owned collection contains art created in our city and across the world; from earliest times to now.

Art can be life-enhancing, controversial or challenge the way we think about the world. Our opinion about an artwork may change if we find out more about it. Some artworks become loved over time and others fall out of fashion.

Many of Aberdeen Art Gallery’s treasures have been donated by individuals or bought for the people of Aberdeen to enjoy. The collection contains almost 40,000 items of fine and decorative or applied art. Fine art often refers to paintings, sculpture and drawings. Applied art can mean ‘art applied to life’, where objects may have a more functional purpose such as fashion design, furniture or tableware. You can also see these works of art in other venues around the city, including Aberdeen Maritime Museum and Aberdeen Treasure Hub.

Architect, botanist, designer, jeweller and enameller: Aberdeen-born James Cromar Watt dedicated his life to the encouragement and promotion of the arts in North East Scotland.

While working as an architect in the 1890s, Watt also created jewellery inspired by flowers, birds and mythical creatures. He began to concentrate more on working with precious metals and by 1896 this had become his main focus. He developed particular skills in the ancient techniques of gold granulation (creating tiny spheres) and enamelling. He made richly detailed brooches, necklaces, pendants and plaques for private clients over the next 30 years until failing eyesight forced him to give up.

Watt’s jewellery was described as ‘lightly handled examples of a vein of fantastic design’ in the Art Journal 1905.

He collected an outstanding group of ancient ceramics, lacquer and previous metal artefacts from the Far East. On his death in 1940, this collection was divided between Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums and National Museums Scotland.

Eardley spent her early career in Glasgow, where she painted the tenement children of Townhead. From 1950 she regularly visited and painted at Catterline, a fishing village south of Aberdeen.

Eardley was born in Warnham, West Sussex but she is recognised as one of Scotland’s most popular 20th century painters. Her mother was Scottish, and the family lived in Glasgow from 1940. Eardley studied at Glasgow School of Art and Hospitalfield House, Arbroath. As a young woman she was awarded scholarships to travel to, and study art in, France and Italy.

Writing to a friend, Eardley talks about drawing in the open air as ‘…a most satisfying joyful thing. The contact which you get because you are still, and quiet in one place […] even the sun and wind too become part of you’.

Throughout her life she continued to paint Glasgow and Catterline. Impossible to tie to any one style, her paintings express an energy that is entirely her own. They powerfully capture the atmosphere of the land and sea, and the lives of the children of Glasgow’s east end.

The Art Gallery had already acquired six paintings by Eardley when her sister, Pat Black, donated 150 drawings in 1988.

Gibb was born in Aberdeenshire and went on to become a fashion designer with an international reputation. In 1970, at the start of his career, one of his outfits was selected by Vogue magazine as Dress of the Year.

Two years later he formed his own fashion house, Bill Gibb Ltd, and launched his first solo collection to critical acclaim. His designs were applauded for their startling combinations of colour, texture and patter. Collaborating with knitwear designer Kaffe Fassett, he created a signature style of layered knits for women. Gibb also gained a reputation for romantic grandeur, dressing celebrities such as model Twiggy and popstars Lulu and Cilla Black. He continued to design for private clients until his untimely death.

‘British designers are storytellers, dreamers, and I think this was really the essence of Bill Gibb.’ John Galliano, fashion designer

In 1997 Gibb’s archive was bought by the Art Gallery with help from supporters including the Friends of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums. We continue to add to the collection, celebrating the work of this remarkable Scottish designer.

The bee was Gibb's signature motif, quite literally "B" for Bill, and appeared in many of his designs. As a result, he was given and collected lots of bee related objects. Aberdeen Art Gallery's collection of Bill Gibb material continues to grow. Our most recent acquisition is the Women's Weekly dress pattern displayed here.

Granite merchant and art collector Alexander Macdonald (1837-1884) was instrumental in the creation of Aberdeen’s Art Gallery. Besides bequeathing his impressive collection to the city, his will also demanded that the art gallery building which would eventually house the collection should be finished within three years of his death. This accelerated the process so that the first phase of the building opened in 1885.

Sharing White’s admiration for their contemporaries, Macdonald only bought works by living artists and strived to establish friendships with them.

Around 1880, he embarked on a project to collect artists’ portraits, supplying uniformly sized canvases for the purpose. His preference for English painters is apparent – foremost among them, his close friend James Clarke Hook. Nevertheless, influential foreign and Scottish artists are also well-represented with figures like Jozef Israels and Joseph Farquharson.

Hope Macdonald continued this collection after her husband’s death. It contains a total of 93 artists’ portraits. The collection is not just a testament to the breadth of Macdonald’s connections, but also a real-time record of some of the most successful artists of the Victorian period.