LONDON.- A new upstairs gallery is to be opened by The Fleming Collection, which has become an embassy for Scottish art in London, enabling it to show rotating displays of major works from its permanent holdings. The new space, above The Fleming Collection’s existing gallery at 13 Berkeley Street, London W1, will be formally launched at a reception on Tuesday 10 May 2011 and open to the public from Friday 10 June 2011.

“This development is an important step for us to undertake in our eleventh year”, says Selina Skipwith, Keeper of Art at The Fleming Collection. “It will ensure that works from our permanent collection, comprising works from 1770 to the present day, are always on show, reinforcing our existing programme of exhibitions. The latter draws on pictures from a wide range of public and private collections as well as our own.”

Two generous donations covering half the cost of the lease for five years have made the new 125 square metres gallery in what was previously office space possible. The Fleming-Wyfold Arts Foundation, which runs The Fleming Collection, receives no public funding. It relies on grants from charitable bodies, corporate sponsorship and donations from individuals to finance its activities.

Entry to the new space, which will be available for hire for special events, will be free for Patrons, Corporate Members and Friends of The Fleming Collection. Charges for other visitors will be £7.50 or £5 for concessions. Details of opening hours for the upstairs gallery have yet to be finalised. Entry to the existing gallery at The Fleming Collection, which opened in 2002 and attracts over 100,000 visitors a year, will continue to be free for all.

Among more than 50 works from The Fleming Collection’s permanent holdings that will go on show when the new gallery opens will be two iconic images of The Highland Clearances – Last of The Clan by Thomas Faed and Lochaber No More by John Watcon Nicol. A group of paintings by the Glasgow Boys will include The Bridge, Crowland by Sir James Guthrie and The Blue Hungarian by Sir John Lavery while among Scottish Colourist paintings exhibited will be Jonquils and Silver by John Duncan Fergusson and Vase of Pink Roses by Samuel John Peploe. The Orange Chair by Anne Redpath, Corner Table by John Maxwell and Anstruther by William Gillies will be included in a group of Edinburgh School works.

Scottish Summer Exhibition 14 June – 27 August 2011
Following on from the success of The Fleming Collection’s first-ever selling exhibition last year, a Scottish Summer Exhibition of works by invited contemporary Scottish artists will take place in the existing gallery space. They will include Bill Scott, President of the Royal Scottish Academy, Adam Kennedy, winner of the 2011 Aspect Prize for Scottish contemporary art, Graham Fagan, Alexander Allen, Helen Flockhart, Kate Whiteford and Derrick Guild.

Loans by The Fleming Collection
The Fleming Collection has agreed to loan a number of works to country houses and galleries. Several paintings, including portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn and Sir David Wilkie, are now hanging in Dumfries House, near Cumnock, Ayrshire, which is owned by a charitable trust. Five pictures will be loaned to an exhibition on the Glasgow Boys in Kirkcudbright Town Hall, Dumfries and Galloway, while three, including a tapestry, will be part of Elizabeth Blackadder’s 80th birthday retrospective at The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. Skating on Duddingston Loch by Charles Lees will be lent to an exhibition on sporting life celebrating the re-opening of The Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh while Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell’s Dunara Castle will be part of a retrospective of the Scottish Colourist’s work at the Dean Gallery, Edinburgh.