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Past Exhibitions
Sixties Stirling
Titanic
Scottish Salon
In Nepal
Dunmore Pottery
Space and Time
Stirling Girls
Pots and Paint
E.H. Shepard
Robert Burns
Miniature Print
Stirling Childhood
John Paterson
Henry Morley
Ronald Forbes
William Wallace
Japanese Art
Tel: 01786 471917
Programmes for adults and children include art exhibitions, events, workshops and school education service.
Open All year
Tues-Sat 10.30-5 and Sundays 2-5.
Admission is free.
Disabled access and facilities
Cafe serves lunches, snacks, teas and coffees with home baking and is open
daily to 4.30pm.
The friends of the Smith offer guided tours every Wednesday afternoon to
groups and individuals and at other times by arrangement.
Tel: 01786 471917.
SEE Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions at the
Smith Art Gallery and Museum
The Stirling Smith is proud to create and host a wide variety of different exhibitions every year, showcasing many different disciplines including fine art, social history, cultural history and other subjects of local and national interest.
In recent years we have presented exhibitions focusing on subjects ranging from the history of golf to the Titanic. Others have dealt with the lives of illustrious figures of Scottish history such as George Buchanan and Sir William Wallace, and celebrated the work of artists from all over the world. There are always new and exciting things to see in our galleries.
Greer Ralston, a graduate of Glasgow School of Art, has returned to painting equestrian-related work after 20 years of producing mainly figurative paintings. Greer regularly exhibits in galleries across the UK and has works in public and private collections including those of top world sportspeople and entrepreneurs.
A recipient of the international Greenshields Scholarship, she has also exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery in London and on several occasions has had portrait commissions auctioned off at Christie's, London.
Horses have featured highly in the Ralston family over the generations and Greer herself competed from an early age. Her return to equestrian painting was inspired by the death of her late father's Irish hunter.
Through her figurative work, she has donated many thousands of pounds to charity and her aim is to do the same through equestrian paintings, starting off with raising funds for the Riding for the Disabled at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum.
The Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum are delighted to host the first Stirling exhibition of artist Robert Euman. A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, Euman works from his Edinburgh studio, regularly exhibiting throughout Britain in one-man shows and group exhibitions.
Influences in Euman's work range from European Symbolism to the minimalists of North America.
Euman chose the title Bridge to express his working methods. He creates a diverse mix of figurative and abstract subjects in his paintings. 'I see the work as each individual piece lying at a certain point on a bridge.'
How long is it since you read a novel by Charles Dickens? Although the works of Dickens are popularly known through television drama, the joy of Dickens is in reading and sharing the printed word. Start the New Year by taking a fresh look at Dickens and find the means of reading and enjoying his works in good company.
Many of Dickens’ novels were written as serials for journals and magazines. This is a chance to explore the novel as a serial in six sessions, led by Grahame Smith, Emeritus Professor of English Literature and a specialist in the works of Dickens.
This new venture complements the 500 Years of Printing season at the Stirling Smith. Serial publishing is part of printing history. The first novel will be A Tale of Two Cities, originally printed 1859 and almost never out of print since.
The class text will be the Penguin classic edition, available for £5.99.
Tickets: £3 (including coffee/tea and biscuits)
Series ticket for all six sessions: £15
Tickets: £10 from Friends of the Smith
7.30pm
The Stirling Press of Eneas Mackay
Publishing Scotland. The Stirling Press of Eneas Mackay
An exhibition at the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum
To celebrate 500 years of printing in Scotland
From 1882 to 1955, the Stirling publishing house of Eneas Mackay issued a steady stream of books. With over 300 titles in a 70 year period, it was not a huge output, but the books are distinctive and Mackay appreciated the ability of a well-illustrated dust jacket to sell the books.
Eneas Mackay senior (1860-1922) came from Inverness to Stirling as a newsagent in the early 1880’s. As in all market towns, diversification was the key to success. He was an agent for the People’s Journal, set up a travel and theatre ticket agency, ran a bookshop and lending library, and also created a small art gallery which sold everything from prints to sculpture. He engaged many Scottish artists - notably Sir D.Y. Cameron - illustrating the beautiful books published by his press. His purpose built tenement at 43 Murray Place became a branch of the Stirling Observer after his death. He had worked closely with the Observer Press, who in turn engaged his son to continue running the book publishing business in partnership. For decades, Mackay and the Observer Press were synonymous.
A native Gaelic speaker, Mackay senior championed the language by publishing many Gaelic titles, as well as Gaelic primers, grammars and dictionaries at a time when Gaelic books were hard to find. He also specialised in local history, and some of the general titles such as J.G. Fyfe’s Scottish Diaries and Memoirs 1550-1746 (1928) and Sir James Ferguson’s William Wallace (1948) are among the very building blocks of Scottish history.
The Mackay Press was also known for its slender and attractively produced volumes of poetry. Perhaps their most important publication for the history of Scottish literature was Hugh MacDiarmid’s Scots Unbound and Other Poems (1932), issued by Mackay after Blackwood failed to publish it.
The exhibition looks at the Mackay Press’s cultural and artistic contribution to the history of printing in Scotland. The private collection of Stuart J. Campbell, who is engaged in the production of a Mackay bibliography, will be featured, together with memorabilia from the Smith’s own collection and the Stirling Observer Press.
The exhibition will be opened at 11.00am on Saturday 1 December by Martyn Wade, National Librarian from the National Library of Scotland, and members of the Stirling Gaelic Choir will pay tribute to Mackay in song
12 noon every Thursday in the Lecture Theatre
A series of events to celebrate the 500th anniversary
of the Printing Press in Scotland.
Tickets: £6 (including a soup and sandwich lunch)
Series ticket for all eight talks: £42.00
17 January
The Early Press in Scotland
Dr Alistair Mann, University of Stirling is a specialist in Press and publishing
history and will give an overview of its development in Scotland.
24 January
Scottish PEN Event
Professor Richard Roberts, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the
University of Lancaster and of Divinity at the University of St Andrews, but
now a Stirling resident will discuss the early years of Scottish PEN. Founded
by Hugh MacDiarmid in 1927, it is Scotland’s first international organisation
for the freedom of expression. The PEN 80th anniversary exhibition runs
together with the Eneas Mackay exhibition. Mackay was a member and
supporter of PEN and published works by several of its members.
31 January
Meet the Editor
Alan Rennie, Stirling Observer and John Miller, former Case Room Manager.
Chaired by Councillor Colin O’Brien, Chairman of the Smith Trustees
The Stirling Observer’s relationship to the printing trade goes back to 1792.
The Observer has been in print since 1836, and Alan Rennie has been Editor
for the past 24 years. He will reflect on the changes in the past quarter
century. John Miller, now an Observer journalist, trained as a printer in the
days of hot metal and has unrivalled knowledge of the printing process.
This is a rare chance to speak face to face, instead of writing the usual
‘Letter to the Editor’.
7 February
Scottish PEN Event: how poetry can change the world
Tessa Ransford, Poet and cultural Activist, founder of the Scottish Poetry
Library and of the Callum Macdonald Poetry Pamphlet awards will read her
poetry speak on PEN, poetry and literary activism.
14 February
Eneas Mackay, Publishing Scotland
Elspeth King, exhibition curator, will look at Eneas Mackay’s Stirling
and the nature and output of the Mackay publishing house
21 February
Street Literature
In this session, folk singer, poet and bibliophile Adam McNaughtan will
talk about the broadsides and chap books which entertained and informed
people in the past. Adam has created his own broadsides, one of which was
a fund-raising song in aid of the purchase of the Smith’s Wallace portrait in
2004. His knowledge of historical street literature is unrivalled.
28 February
The Reverend Robert Kirk and the Aberfoyle Fairies
Louis Stott. Eneas Mackay published a great deal on customs, beliefs and
superstitions, including Robert Kirk’s Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and
Fairies. Historian and bibliophile Louis Stott will look at the publication
and the legend.
6 March
Printing in Stirling today
Christopher Steward, head of Stirling Reprographics, the printing house for
Stirling Council, will speak on the contemporary business of printing.
This important display features for the first time in the Smith's history, an interpretation of the history of Stirling, told using artefacts from the Smith collections. It has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and sponsorship from Scottish Amicable.
Allow at least 1 hour for browsing as the exhibition is full of detail. A variety of quizzes & games are provided for children.
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