Perpetua Pope - The Scottish Gallery

Perpetua Pope

Perpetua Pope New Paintings
4 May – 1 June 2011
The Scottish Gallery
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ
Tel 0131 558 1200
Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk
www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Front cover: The Road to the Ferry oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms
Opposite: 1 Seascape oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms

Foreword
We are once again delighted to host a show for Pip Pope.
Her long association with The Scottish Gallery, her knowledge
of 20th Century Scottish painting – she has known most of the
major figures and has an extraordinary and surprising eye as
a collector – and her quiet dedication to her art make her an
exceptional artist for our times.
Pip Pope is well prepared for her latest exhibition of new
work. Her practice is to bank pictures as they are finished by
getting them framed, wrapped and stacked in a spare room.
This gives her the confidence that she will have enough work
for her show and also, particularly for her oils, it protects
the paintings from the dangers inherent in being on an easel
in the studio; of being over-painted. She is intensely selfcritical
and despite a professional career that approaches the
prodigious she is riven with doubt and always exercised about
how to leave a painting; to declare it finished. Making art is a
process and the declaration that a work is finished implies a
swagger of confidence alien to Miss Pope; she often prefers a
landscape, say of Eoligarry on Barra, as it first appears washed
in with thinned paint. This is how she identifies the mood and
atmosphere which attaches to a particular place, but in the
subsequent sessions, sometimes difficult, she allows her own
particular vision to characterize and inhabit the picture and
make it unmistakably a Perpetua Pope. And for this we are
grateful. Some years ago we celebrated the artist’s ninetieth
birthday with an exhibition; there is no need for a current
milestone but by the evidence displayed in this show we can
look forward to more…
Guy Peploe
Managing Director, The Scottish Gallery

2 Blackthorn I oil on canvas 40.5 x 56 cms

3 Blackthorn III oil on canvas 40.5 x 56 cms

4 Blackthorn IV oil on canvas 40.5 x 56 cms

5 Shore, East Lothian oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms
6 Vatersay oil on canvas 71 x 91 cms

7 Cambo Snowdrops I oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms

8 Bank with Scabious oil on canvas 40.5 x 30.5 cms

9 Sun through the Trees watercolour and pastel 57 x 54.5 cms

10 Peat Bank, Islay oil on canvas 35.5 x 61 cms

11 Autumn Garden oil on canvas 35.5 x 45.5 cms

12 Flowers on the Shore I oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms

13 Honesty oil on canvas 40.5 x 40.5 cms

14 Orchis oil on canvas board 24 x 17.5 cms

15 Summer Flowers watercolour 59.5 x 58 cms

16 Early Flowers watercolour 21.5 x 23 cms

17 Barra watercolour 15 x 20 cms
18 Dark Sea, Barra oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms

19 Cliff Path oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms

20 The Road to the Ferry oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms
21 Summer Field, Barra oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cms

22 September Flowers oil on canvas 30.5 x 40.5 cms

23 Flowers on the Shore III oil on canvas board 20 x 25.5 cms
24 Shore, Barra oil on canvas 40.5 x 56 cms

25 The Lammermuirs oil on canvas board 17.5 x 24 cms

26 The Orchard oil on canvas board 17.5 x 24 cms

27 Still Water, Rosehall oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms

28 White Tree Paeony oil on canvas 51 x 61 cms

29 White Tree Paeony watercolour 51 x 63.5 cms

Perpetua Pope
Born Warwickshire.
Educated Albyn School, Aberdeen.
Studied Edinburgh College of Art.
Trained Moray House College of Education.
Taught in primary and private schools.
Lecturer Visual Arts Moray House College of Education.
Resigned 1973 to become full time painter.
Solo Exhibitions
1956, 65, 75, 78,
82, ’06, ’11 The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
1979 The Loomshop Gallery, Lower Largo
1980 Peter Potter Gallery, Haddington
1986, 93 96, 2001 The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
1983, 87, 90, 92, 94 Macaulay Gallery
1984 Broughton Gallery
1998 Stenton Gallery
Mixed Exhibitions
1971 Festival Exhibition, Edinburgh College
of Art, 25th Anniversary
Mixed exhibitions in many of the above galleries as well as in
RA, RSA, SSA, SSWA, ABDS Artists Annual Exhibitions.
Works in Public Collections
Scottish Arts Council
City of Edinburgh Art Collection
Nuffield Foundation
Marks & Spencers
Argyll County Council
Royal Bank of Scotland
Morton Fraser
Robert Fleming Collection
Admin Staff College, Henley on Thames
Works in Private Collections
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
and in Britain, USA and France.

Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition
Perpetua Pope, New Paintings
4 May – 1 June 2011
Exhibition can be viewed online at
www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/perpetuapope
ISBN 978-1-905146-52-9
Designed by www.kennethgray.co.uk
Photography by John McKenzie
Printed by Stewarts
All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced
in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without
the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ
Tel 0131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk Web www.scottish-gallery.co.uk