This unique portrait documents the first time an Arctic Inuit freely travelled to Scotland. John Sakeouse came from the west coast of Greenland and became curious to visit Britain after missionaries converted him to Christianity. He stowed away with his canoe on the whaling ship Thomas and Ann, arriving at its home port of Leith in August 1816. Huge crowds soon came to marvel at his speed and skill as a canoeist and harpoon-thrower, and he became something of a local celebrity. The Edinburgh artist, Alexander Nasmyth, came across Sakeouse in the street during his second stay in Leith in 1817-18. He painted this portrait and gave Sakeouse art lessons.

Eric Liddell remains one of the most inspiring Olympic athletes. He is remembered equally for his fame as a sportsman and his work as a missionary. He won two medals in the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, most famously the gold in the 400 metres and a bronze in the 200 metres. Although the favourite to win the 100 metres in Paris, Liddell chose not to run in the event on religious grounds as the heats were on a Sunday. The artist Eileen Soper was a family friend of the Liddells. A printmaker and illustrator, she is best known as a wildlife artist and for illustrating Enid Blyton’s Famous Five adventures. She painted this portrait of Liddell in the year of his last appearance on the track on British soil – Hampden Park in the summer of 1925.

Ken Currie has captured the horror and anxiety associated with cancer in this powerful triple portrait. As pioneering cancer specialists, the oncologists are depicted ready and prepared to fight and destroy the disease. When this portrait was painted, Professor Robert Steele (left), Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri (centre) and Professor Sir David Lane (right) were members of the Department of Surgery and Molecular Oncology at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee. Three Oncologists was Currie’s first official portrait commission. As the oncologists were unable to gather for multiple portrait sittings, life masks were made as a record of their appearance. Currie also spent many hours observing his sitters in the operating theatre.

This unusual portrait sculpture is a re-creation in crystal glass of one of the racing helmets worn by Susie Wolff during her career in Formula 1. To create it Angela Palmer worked with a team of glass blowers in Stourbridge near Birmingham. The result is a delicate object, the fragility of which reminds us of the vulnerability and bravery of drivers like Wolff, as they take extraordinary risks in pursuit of ever-faster speeds. Wolff was born in Oban in 1982 and from a young age raced karts. She went on to be a professional motor racing driver, moving into F1 in 2012 as a Williams team development driver and later, a test driver. At the 2014 British Grand Prix, she became the first woman to take part in an F1 race weekend in 22 years.

Horse McDonald is an iconic and unique singer-songwriter and is one of Scotland’s most celebrated singers. She has been writing, recording and performing for over thirty years. Q magazine described her as owning ‘one of the finest voices of modern times, soul and intelligence combined.’ The sitting for this portrait included Horse singing her best-loved song Careful, live and a cappella for the artist in her studio. This became an intimate exploration, for both artist and sitter, of Horse’s captivating performance style; the resulting portrait shows Horse in a frozen moment on stage.