Scottish Blog

The Royal Scottish Academy is an organization which promotes contemporary Scottish art.

Since it was founded, in 1826, the Royal Scottish Academy has proudly been an independently funded organization, created for the purpose of promoting the creation and interest in Scottish art.

The first exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy was in 1827, shortly after. It received a full royal charter in 1838. In 1830, the Royal Scottish Academy began its collection of literature and the creation of a library. In 1840 the Royal Scottish Academy created an arts school, which was called the Life school.

The Royal Scottish Academy until 1910, the Royal Scottish Academy as housed inside the same building as the National Scottish Art Gallery on The Mound in Edinburgh. After which it was transferred to an adjacent building, which previous to this known as the Royal Institution. The most recent development of the Royal Scottish Academy is its inclusion of printmakers in its memberships.

The Royal Scottish Academy is comprised of the leading artists, sculptors and architects of the time. To date, the membership numbers over six hundred and twenty members, of these, some of the most prominent were:

George Aikman
Elizabeth Blackadder
Francis Cadell
Alexander Carrick
George Paul Chalmers
William Cruikshank
Stanley Cursiter
Robert Gibb
William Gillies
George Harvey
James Eckford Lauder
Robert Scott Lauder
Horatio McCulloch
David Michie
Joseph Noel Paton
Samuel Peploe
Sir Henry Raeburn
Anne Redpath
Thomas Ross
Tom Scott
William Lamb