Royal Scottish Academy (RSA)

07/10/2026

🎥 🚨£10,000 ARTIST OPPORTUNITY🚨 🎥

There are just a few days left to apply for the RSA Elizabeth Lornie Moving Image Award! Alongside funds to support the research, development and production of a new body of moving image work, the award also includes the opportunity to exhibit at the Academy and have your work entered into our collection.

→ Applications close on Sunday 11 October at 5pm
Image: Alexander & Susan Maris,13.08 (after Rory McEwen), film still, Morton Award winner 2014

04/10/2026

From student life in the 1950s to their long careers at Edinburgh College of Art and as practising artists, Elizabeth Blackadder and John Houston spent decades at the centre of a wide circle of friends, students, colleagues and fellow Academicians. They were deeply immersed in their own creative practices, but always supported and encouraged those around them.

The Blackadder Houston Mid-Career Painting Award reflects that generosity. Established in line with Elizabeth and John’s wishes, the £20,000 award gives one mid-career painter the opportunity to devote themselves exclusively to painting for up to 26 weeks. Time to focus, develop an idea and commit to your practice can be transformative, and we’re honoured to continue Elizabeth and John’s legacy by supporting the next generation of painters in this way.

🗓️There’s just one week left to apply for the 2026 award before the deadline on Sunday 11 October.

03/10/2026

Making art requires more than just ideas. It requires the time, space and opportunities to test, develop and pursue them. Over the past two centuries, we’ve supported thousands of creatives through awards, residencies, exhibitions and scholarships. Our current exhibition, This 26, brings together work by 26 artists, each selected to represent a year of the RSA’s artist opportunities programme since the start of the century.

🗓️ Until 11 October
🎟️ Free entry

01/10/2026

We’ve got another busy month planned with lots of opportunities to celebrate together! At Glasgow Print Studio, delve into the work of Robbie Bushe, Rachel Maclean, Barry McGlashan and Caroline Walker, while at Dundee Contemporary Arts you can catch a screening of the RSA200: Moving Image Programme. At Moray School of Art, Learning Forward brings together work by UHI Fine Art alumni and past RSA New Contemporaries from Friday 30 October.

From the first of the month, the Scottish NHS Arts Collective’s touring exhibition heads to Glasgow Royal Infirmary and Inverclyde Royal Hospital, creating opportunities for patients, visitors and staff to experience art. And at the end of October, Duncan Shanks RSA: The Unseen Journey opens at the Hunterian exploring a decade of sketchbooks, studies and finished works.

🔗 Find out more on our website

30/09/2026

29/09/2026

Working primarily from observation, Ellen Macdonald’s practice explores painting as both a means of representation and a record of its own making. Ellen received the RSA Landscape Award in 2007, and you’ll currently find three of her work in the gallery as part of This 26, our exhibition celebrating the recent history of our artist opportunity programme.
 
🗓️Until Sunday 11 October

28/09/2026

Interesting collections are created by finding connections between different artists and different perspectives, and this is certainly reflected in our most recent Art Rental installation! Following our work with Hampden Bank, we were delighted to bring a selection of works to Hampden Capital Limited for their London office. Landscape, texture and the natural world run through the collection, bringing together contemporary paintings by Calum McClure, Jim Reed and Louisa Longstaff-Scales with works from the RSA Collection by Academicians John Houston and William Gillies.

🌟Together, the works create a dialogue between contemporary practice and our historic collection, showing how artists from different generations can come together to shape a space.

25/09/2026

Màiri Gillies lives and works in Lewis. Raised in Edinburgh, her childhood was steeped in language, traditional cèilidhs and the duplicity of urban life connected to familial rural places. Formally trained in sculpture and horticulture, a Hebridean move awoke a deep curiosity around a Gaelic philosophy of aesthetics.
 
🗓️Explore Màiri’s work in the gallery until Sunday 11 October

24/09/2026

Last week, friends, colleagues and supporters gathered at Aberdeen Art Gallery for a Civic Reception honouring Dr Frances Walker CBE RSA and her extraordinary contribution to the city and its artistic community.

Hosted by Aberdeen City Council and organised by Aberdeen Art Gallery and the Royal Scottish Academy, the event was opened by the Lord Provost of Aberdeen, Cllr David Cameron. Presentations then followed led by Duncan Macmillan HRSA, RSA Director Colin Greenslade, Arthur Watson PPRSA and RSA President Gareth Fisher, before Frances was presented with a Silver Gilt RSA200 medal in recognition of her contribution to art in Scotland and 54 years of service to the Academy. Now 96, Frances is the RSA’s senior-most Academician, with a career spanning eight decades. From her early teaching years in Harris and North Uist, to her time as a lecturer at Gray’s School of Art, Governor of Edinburgh College of Art and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, as well as her role as a founding member of Peacock Printmakers, her influence on Scotland’s artistic landscape has been huge.

As a painter and printmaker, Frances has spent decades looking closely at Scotland’s coast, islands and remote communities, while also taking her practice to places as far-flung as Iceland, Canada, Finland and Antarctica.

✨It was a privilege to come together in Aberdeen to celebrate Frances, her remarkable work and the lasting contribution she's made to both the city and to Scottish art.

Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums Aberdeen City Council Lord Provost of Aberdeen

23/09/2026

The autumn equinox is here! 🍂✨

To mark the changing season, here’s a look at some autumnal works currently on view in the Academicians’ Gallery.
→ Elizabeth Blackadder RSA, Untitled (Amaryllis and Autumn Leaves)
→ Lennox Dunbar RSA, Storm
→ John Houston RSA, Untitled (Sunset Coastal Rocks Sketch)

🍂 On view until 11 October