The National Gallery of Scotland

In the latest of our series on Scotland's best galleries and museums, Roddy Martine takes a walk round Edinburgh's National Gallery

It can sometimes be confusing when people talk about the National Galleries of Scotland, because essentially this umbrella title encompasses four galleries within Scotland's capital, and includes the elegant National Gallery of Scotland.

This sits at the foot of Edinburgh's Mound, immediately behind its sister neo-classical building, the Royal Scottish Academy, to which it is linked by the lower-level Playfair Gallery. The architect William Henry Playfair was commissioned to design both of the original buildings in the mid-19th century, and in doing so made a major contribution towards the boast that Edinburgh is the ‘Athens of the North.' Both buildings were re-modelled by the architect William Thomas Oldrieve in 1912, and the £30million Playfair project, which links them and can only be described as visionary, was completed in 2004.

For many years I used to go along to the National Gallery and marvel at the collection that was then on view. In those days I never thought of it as anything more than an art gallery where there were some spectacular pictures, but nothing much else to get excited about.

Then in 1984, something extraordinary happened. Timothy Clifford, former director at Manchester City Art Gallery, arrived on the Edinburgh scene and within a year had transformed the building. Out went the drab, monochrome backdrops and in came red walls and green carpeting. Pictures which had remained sleeping for decades in the gallery's store were suddenly liberated and ...

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• By : Roddy Martine
• In : Art and Antiques
• Issue : 33
• Page : 22
• Words : 770