The University of Dundee Museums hold over 33,000 objects, artworks and specimens displayed to the public in several venues. The University has a particularly strong Art & Design collection comprising over 8,000 works. These include traditional media such as paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture as well as important holdings of video art, animation, artists’ books and Scotland’s only public collection of original comics art.
Art Unlocked is an online talk series by Art UK in collaboration with Bloomberg Philanthropies. This Curation is based on a talk by Matthew Jarron, Curator, on 7th September 2022. You can find a recording at https://youtu.be/woQTdPGj0-k
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The Glaive of Light 1897
The University of Dundee is renowned for its interdisciplinary work bringing together art and science, a tradition that goes back to its origins as University College Dundee, founded in 1881. One of its early staff, the Professor of Botany Patrick Geddes, played a crucial role in developing the Celtic Revival movement in Scotland. He worked closely with the Dundee-born painter John Duncan, employing him on various art projects in Edinburgh. In 1897 Duncan returned to Dundee and helped make the city a leading centre for the Celtic Revival. This painting was one of the first he completed on his return and it shows the influence of both European and Japanese art.
John Duncan (1866–1945)
Oil on canvas
H 44.5 x W 60 cm
University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
Image credit: University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
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William Boyd, Esq., Chairman of Dundee Dental Hospital and School 1936
William Boyd was chair of Dundee Dental Hospital & School (the latter now the University’s School of Dentistry) but was also a significant art collector and patron. He was an important benefactor to contemporary artists including the sculptor Benno Schotz and the Dundee Colourist John Maclauchlan Milne, and he also had a passion for modern French painting. He was the first person in Scotland to buy a Matisse and owned more Van Goghs than anyone else in the country, one of which he sold in order to endow the University’s first Chair of Dental Surgery. Thanks to Boyd and his predecessor as chair, William Rettie (also a keen collector), the Dental School has several significant artworks in its collection.
Benno Schotz (1891–1984)
Bronze
H 26.5 x W 17.5 x D 24 cm
University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
© Royal Scottish Academy of Art & Architecture. Image credit: University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
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Balgavies Loch 1962
The University’s art collection really took off in the 1950s thanks to the donation of a significant collection of Scottish and English art by former student James Nicoll. This was followed in 1960 by the gift of £1000 by another alumnus, James Lamb, to set up a Fine Art Purchasing Fund. Over the next 15 years, the University was able to acquire major works by many notable Scottish painters, including Raeburn, McTaggart, the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists. Notably, only two paintings were acquired by living artists, one by Joan Eardley and this landscape, commissioned from Dundee’s most celebrated painter, McIntosh Patrick. It depicts Balgavies Loch, once part of the estate of the Baxter family who founded University College.
James McIntosh Patrick (1907–1998)
Oil on canvas
H 74.5 x W 100.5 cm
University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
© University of Dundee Fine Art Collections. Image credit: University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
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Portrait of a Student (Margaret Black) c.1964
Alberto Morrocco was Head of Drawing & Painting at Dundee’s Art College for over 30 years, influencing several generations of students. However this painting was created at a separate institution, Dundee College of Education (also now part of the University), where those wanting to become art teachers could study for their teaching certificates. It was made as part of a demonstration in portrait painting, in which Morrocco chose a student from the audience and created her portrait in less than two hours. We have several other examples of Morrocco’s portraits in our collection, including one of the University’s first Chancellor, the Queen Mother, but none has the same sense of vitality as this rapidly painted demonstration piece.
Alberto Morrocco (1917–1998)
Oil on canvas
H 90 x W 70 cm
University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
© the artist's estate / Bridgeman Images. Image credit: University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
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The D'Arcy Thompson Print Folio – Primates 2013
This brief selection began with Patrick Geddes and ends with the even greater artistic influence of another of the key early professors at the University, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson. His 1917 book On Growth & Form, written here in Dundee using the specimens from our Zoology Museum, has had a profound impact on art, design and architecture and was read by many leading artists including Salvador Dalí, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock and Richard Hamilton. Recently we’ve been building a collection of artwork inspired by D’Arcy’s ideas and collections, including this work from a specially commissioned print folio. It features the taxidermied specimen of a young chimpanzee acquired by D’Arcy for his museum in 1886.
Matthew Dalziel (b.1957) and Louise Scullion (b.1966)
Digital print on paper
H 31 x W 31 cm
University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
© the artists. Image credit: University of Dundee Fine Art Collections
