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SOME art historians talk so enthusiastically about the detailed
academic appraisal and provenance of painting that they often leave the
interested lay listener with the impression that they actually derive
little visual pleasure or excitement from the works themselves.
This is certainly not so when listening to Edinburgh-born Dr Lindsay
Errington, an Assistant Keeper at the National Gallery of Scotland, who
describes herself as ''a failed artist.'' Unusually for an art
historian, she trained first as a painter and she has a strong feeling
for colour and design and the matiere of painting. It is not surprising,
then, to discover her overwhelming interest in Scottish painting,
particularly of the nineteenth century, for which she has a lively
appreciation.
After completing a course in drawing and painting at Camberwell School
of Art in London, Lindsay Errington subsequently studied art history at
the Courtauld Institute and then taught at Newcastle College of Art as
it was called in pre-polytechnic days. Later, while working on her
thesis for a PhD, part-time teaching kept body and soul together, but
she admits that she did not much enjoy the daily classroom slog.
''I very much wanted to be in Scotland and could scarcely believe my
luck when I was appointed to the National Gallery in 1972, the second
woman to hold a curatorial post. My male colleagues at the time asked if
I would like to take on the responsibility for the Scottish paintings in
the collection. They didn't, I think, believe they were doing me a
favour, but I was delighted,'' Dr Errington recalls.
Since then she has fought long and hard to secure greater recognition
-- and more funds -- for the Scottish section of the gallery and she
aims to achieve a properly representative collection of Scottish art.
When asked about the earliest Scottish paintings in the gallery,
Lindsay Errington said: ''There is a point in history when Scottish
painting, alas, becomes invisible; the early religious paintings were
later destroyed and our collection actually begins with the
seventeenth-century work of Jamesone.''
When her work schedule permits, Lindsay enjoys gardening at her
cottage on the edge of the Lammermuirs and walking her dog there. Her
three-year-old Arab horse, recently ''schooled,'' is a greatly prized
acquisition and she succinctly summed up her liking for the animal when
she remarked: ''It's really like having a work of art by a great master,
that one can lead on a rope.''
This year Lindsay Errington has two welcome opportunities to share her
knowledgeable enthusiasm for Scottish painting. One is the organisation
of a major exhibition of work by William McTaggart for the Edinburgh
Festival: ''A real labour of love for me as I think he was a marvellous
painter. I hope to have drawings and paintings from each period of his
life, including his student days at the Trustees Academy in the 1850s.''
McTaggart, she believes, was a brilliant draughtsman even then and the
people who seem to think that his human figures in his later large
landscapes and seascapes are mere smudges because he couldn't draw will
be proved entirely wrong. ''Some of his work may have been lurking
unseen for years in attics -- perhaps we will rediscover some of
these.''
Her other opportunity to further the acclaim of Scottish painting is,
in a sense, ambassadorial. Cambridge University have invited her to be
the visiting Slade Professor of Fine Art this term, an honour which she
much appreciates.
''Normally the person appointed takes up residence in one of the
colleges for a term and gives a series of lectures and some seminars.
However, because of my commitment with preparations for the McTaggart
exhibition, and with the approval of the Trustees of the National
Gallery, I shall commute between Cambridge and Edinburgh as much as
possible. I shall be the first Slade professor to choose to lecture on
Scottish painting and I hope to develop a theme linking painting and
writing in nineteenth-century Scotland.''
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