James Guthrie’s Diploma Work was painted en plein air in the garden of his friend and fellow painter, James Whitelaw Hamilton (1860-1932) at Thornton Lodge, Helensburgh. Seated around the table are the sisters of Hamilton, Maggie and Mary, and Hannah M Walton, sister of the painter E A Walton (1860-1922).

This painting represents the peak of Guthrie’s exploration of Impressionism, as he pushed boundaries with the bold use of complementary colours in the dappled sunlight and shadow of the composition. It enjoyed an international profile within a year of completion, being exhibited in Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1893 and then London, Paris, and Munich in 1894.

Parsonage Down is an area of chalk downlands in Wiltshire. A National Nature Reserve, it is renowned for the abundance and variety of its wildflowers.

The landscape’s form and colours inspired Rand to create two distinct sculptures: Parsonage Down I and, shown here, Parsonage Down II. The Reserve’s visitor leaflet could be describing the piece when it records; “The ridges of Celtic fields are particularly pronounced in high summer, when the rust coloured flowerheads of salad burnet grow densely along the top of each ridge where the soil is thinnest.”

From 2015-2017, the RSA received the bulk of the Keith Rand Studio gift. It contains sculpture, maquettes, sketchbooks, drawings, tools and a substantial archive.

Until 2019, Ouchterlony was known only as ‘Mrs Cumming’. Our collections contain three impressive oils by her, including this view of Hawthornden. Gifted in 1886, they were accompanied only by Elisabeth’s married surname.

Thanks to RSA Residency artist Victoria Bernie and genealogist Caroline Gerard, we have revealed Ouchterlony’s talent, and her life. Born in Montrose, she was involved in trade to Riga, where she lived before moving to Hampstead and then Edinburgh. In Edinburgh, she likely attended the school of Alexander Nasmyth’s daughters, where Nasmyth would provide demonstrations. Ouchterlony’s paintings are recognised by Nasmyth’s biographer as those that most ‘closely adhere to the Nasmyth style’.

Ade Adesina was born in Nigeria. He graduated from Gray’s School of Art in 2012 and remains based in Aberdeen. He exhibits nationally and internationally and has won numerous awards for his printmaking. Elected an RSA Academician in 2017, in 2012 Adesina travelled to Florence on an RSA John Kinross Scholarship. Like many artists before and since, the scholarship had a lasting impact on his life and his art.

Definition is one of two significant prints Adesina deposited to represent his Kinross Scholarship. His work contains imagery from nature, history, culture, technology and the built environment, while symbols of time feature often.

In 1944 Phyllis Mary Bone became the RSA’s first full female Academician. Although the Academy elected its first female Honorary Academician in 1829, and today’s Academy is an institution with equality at its heart, attitudes in the Victorian era took a long time to overcome. Upon election as an Academician, each practitioner is required to select a work, of their own choosing, to join the Diploma Collection and it is no surprise Phyllis Mary Bone chose her powerfully modern sculpture of Shere Khan from Rudyard Kipling’s popular The Jungle Book.

Specialising in animal sculpture, Bone exhibited many pieces at the RSA from 1915 until 1972.