What connects performing pigeons with this painting? The great British art quiz

The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture hosts today’s quiz, setting questions to explore art collections of museums closed due to coronavirus

This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home of the UK’s public art collections, showing art from more than 3,000 venues, by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK sets the questions.

Today, our questions are set by the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture, in Edinburgh. The RSA is the oldest surviving Scottish artist-run institution and holds a collection recognised as being of national significance to Scotland. It includes the best of the nation’s art and architecture direct from practitioners of the past 200 years and is particularly strong in its representation of practice through sketchbooks, equipment and artistic connections.

You can see art from the RSA on Art UK here. Find out more on the RSA website, here.

  1. Collection name - The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
‘George Watson (1767-1837), PRSA, First President of the Royal Scottish Academy (from the original in the National Gallery of Scotland)’, William Smellie Watson (1796-1874)

    George Watson was the first president of the Scottish Academy. In what year was the institution founded?

    1. 1768

    2. 1823

    3. 1826

    4. 1879

  2. Collection name - The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
The Lace Cloth’, c.1944, Anne Redpath (1895-1965)

    The painter Anne Redpath was one of the Royal Scottish Academy’s most acclaimed 20th-century members. Which French artist was a strong influence on her art?

    1. Paul Cezanne

    2. Camille Pisarro

    3. Henri Matisse

    4. Edgar Degas

  3. Collection name - The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
‘St Bernard’s Well’, Elisabeth Maria Ouchterlony (1776-1854)

    Until very recently the identity of this artist was known only as Mrs Cumming. Recent research has revealed her name to be Elisabeth Maria Ouchterlony. Which famous Scottish artist taught her landscape painting?

    1. Henry Raeburn

    2. Allan Ramsay

    3. Alexander Runciman

    4. Alexander Nasmyth

  4. Royal Scottisah Academy<br>Collection name - The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
‘Personage Down II’, 2004, Keith John Rand (1956-2013)

    Keith Rand’s sculpture Parsonage Down II was inspired by which British landscape?

    1. Stonehenge and the chalk hills in Wiltshire

    2. The Devil’s Beef Tub in the Scottish Borders

    3. Goat Fell and the Arran mountains

    4. Bennachie and the surrounding hills in Aberdeenshire

  5. Royal Scottisah Academy<br>Collection name - The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
‘Ship Chariot’, c.1989, Fiona Dean (b.1962)

    The sculptor Fiona Dean used which materials in her early work Ship Chariot?

    1. Iron, plaster and gouache

    2. Steel, fibre cement and pigment

    3. Wood, concrete and ink

    4. Bronze, clay and acrylic paint

  6. Collection name - The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
the artist. 
‘Greyfriars Church, Aberdeen – West Tower’, c.1919, Alexander Marshall Mackenzie (1848-1933),

    Besides painting and sculpture, the RSA has collected pieces related to architecture since it was established. What is the dominant architectural style of Alexander Marshall Mackenzie’s impressive Greyfriars church in Aberdeen?

    1. Gothic revival

    2. Neoclassical

    3. Baroque

    4. Renaissance

  7. Collection name - The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
‘The Unexpected Meeting’, 1927, Ancell Stronach (1901-1981)

    The Unexpected Meeting was painted by Ancell Stronach around 1927. Why did Stronach resign from Glasgow School of Art in 1939?

    1. To open his own art gallery

    2. To work as a solicitor

    3. To become a travelling circus performer

    4. After disagreements over his teaching methods

  8. Collection name - The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture
‘Polish Journey’, c.1998, Joyce W. Cairns (b.1947)

    Polish Journey is the diploma work of the Royal Scottish Academy’s current and first female president, Joyce W Cairns. But whose photograph features in the locket around her neck in the painting?

    1. Her uncle

    2. Her grandfather

    3. An anonymous soldier

    4. Her father

Solutions

1:C - The Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was founded on 27 May 1826, after a paper drafted by the artist William Nicholson attracted 24 signatures from prominent Scottish artists. The academy received its royal charter in 1838 from Queen Victoria. The other options here are the founding dates of the RSA’s sister academies: the Royal Academy (1768), the Royal Hibernian Academy (1823) and the Royal Ulster Academy (1879). Image: George Watson (1767-1837), PRSA, First President of the Royal Scottish Academy, William Smellie Watson (1796-1874), Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture., 2:C - Redpath was particularly influenced by post-impressionism, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. A prolific painter, she was central to Scotland’s Edinburgh School of painters in the 20th century. The RSA holds a number of Redpath’s sketchbooks and her archive, part of a recent bequest by her son, the artist David Michie and his family. Image: The Lace Cloth, c.1944, Anne Redpath (1895-1965) © Royal Scottish Academy/the artist’s estate/Bridgeman Images., 3:D - Elisabeth Ouchterlony’s story was unravelled by genealogist Caroline Gerard after the artist Victoria Bernie had discovered Mrs Cumming during a recent RSA collections residency. We now know that she was a notable student of Alexander Nasmyth and a talented landscape painter. Her view of St Bernard’s Well here is very similar to a sketch by Nasmyth in the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland. Image: St Bernard’s Well, Elisabeth Maria Ouchterlony (1776-1854), Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture., 4:A - Keith Rand was born in Germany and trained at Winchester School of Art. His formative years came while working at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire, and as a tutor at Aberdeen’s Gray’s School of Art before he returned to live in Salisbury. Rand’s material understanding and manipulation of wood was spectacular. He made his own tools, which allowed him to realise his unique forms and create their beautifully sculpted surfaces. Image: Parsonage Down II, 2004, Keith John Rand (1956-2013) © Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture., 5:B - Dean cut and welded the spirals of Ship Chariot from sheets of mild steel, creating their mottled effect by heating and hammering. The body of the chariot was modelled directly on to an armature of steel rod and chicken wire using fibre cement. Dean used different tools to draw into and make impressions on the surface before applying cement pigment. The curved vertical form was cut from a steel pipe. Image: Ship Chariot, c.1989, Fiona Dean (b.1962) © the artist. Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture., 6:A - Marshall Mackenzie designed many significant buildings in The Granite City, including Aberdeen Art Gallery, which was recently reopened after a revamp by another RSA architect, Gareth Hoskins. The impressive draughtsmanship of the historic architectural drawings in the RSA collections has been somewhat lost as technology has gradually taken over the practice. Fortunately, however, it has been redirected to the art of model-making. Image: Greyfriars Church, Aberdeen, West Tower, c.1919, Alexander Marshall Mackenzie (1848-1933), Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture., 7:C - Before the second world war, Stronach abandoned his artistic pursuits and joined a touring circus. His act involved birds and was billed as Ancell’s 40 Painted Pigeons. He toured Britain with his wife, who was a professional acrobat. Image: The Unexpected Meeting, 1927, Ancell Stronach (1901-1981) © the artist’s estate. Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture., 8:D - In 1997, Cairns began her ambitious War Tourist project. Cairns travelled through second world war sites and concentration camps; a sombre journey drawing in collective remembrance and interpreting the experience. Her father served in the Queens own Cameron Highlanders during the war. When Cairns embarked on her project, she carried this photograph of him in uniform with her. Image: Polish Journey, c.1998, Joyce W Cairns (b.1947) © the artist. Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture., 9:, 10:

Scores

  1. 6 and above.

    Pure dead brilliant

  2. 0 and above.

    Yer heid’s full o’ mince ...

  3. 3 and above.

    Gie it laldy

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