Fleming collection boosts regional cities
The Grey Fan - print by Francis Cadell
The Director, James Knox, of the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation will be joining us at Art Investment and Cities - our seventh Forum, to be held at RIBA Portland Place on 25th January 2018.
The Fleming collection is internationally renowned and holds some of Scotland's best known paintings. In 2015 it closed its gallery doors in Mayfair, London to focus on loaning and travelling art exhibitions to boost regional city galleries - a museum without walls - as well as arts education and bursaries for artists through the Royal Scottish Academy.
One aim of the change in direction has been to expand the audience for Scottish art in the UK and overseas. The Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists (Peploe, Cadell - works by him above and below -, Fergusson and Hunter) feature strongly among 600 oil paintings and watercolours dating from 1770 to the present day . The collection also includes two images of the Highland Clearances, one by Thomas Faed and the other painted by John Watson Nicol.
This decision was taken after the sale of Fleming's merchant bank in 2000 and the establishment of the Foundation by members of the Fleming family. The collection started after the bank moved into offices in London in 1968 where works by Scottish artists were acquired because of the origins of the bank founded by Robert Fleming in Dundee.
The life of the last Lord Wyfold - grandson of Robert Fleming - is commemorated by the addition to the name of the foundation.
