The Art Appreciation Group is an informal group interested in all aspects of the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture. In Glasgow, we have visited a villa designed by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, an exhibition of the varied work of Glasgow Girl Jessie Marion King and the re-displayed collections of the Hunterian Art Gallery covering three centuries of Scottish art.

Our sights are not limited to the Glasgow area and we have plans to visit the new displays of Scottish art from the collections of the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.

We also hold occasional art chats and visits ‘behind the scenes’, whether this is to a gallery’s stores, an archive, or even an artist’s ‘open studio’ day.

The art chats provide the opportunity to explore a particular theme chosen by the group such as ‘movement and gesture’ in painting and sculpture. A varied group of artworks from collections around the world, including France, Spain and America, as well as the UK, is presented as a PowerPoint which forms the focus for lots of interesting comment and discussion.

Coming Up

Our May meeting is one of our Art Chat meetings. This time we will be discussing the four Scottish Colourists: Fergusson, Peploe, Hunter and Caddell, looking at a few examples of their work in a PowerPoint presentation. We are all hoping for a lively discussion!

2026 Events

The Art Appreciation and Local History Groups had a wonderful treat in April when we were shown around one half of Alexander “Greek” Thomson’s double villa in Mansionhouse Road. The current owner described what the area was like when the house was built in the mid-1850s, being quite rural as Langside was not within Glasgow’s city boundaries at that time. We saw plenty of the architect’s distinctive details carved into the external stonework and also indoors, in the decorative elements of door panels and ceilings.

February - Hunterian Art Gallery Exhibition- "Views of Glasgow: a window into communities"

December 25

Our group will be meeting for our usual end of year Art Chat session. This time we will be focusing on the Glasgow Boys and Girls. Please do come along to contribute your thoughts on the highly individual works of artists from the late 19th and early 20th century living and working in Glasgow.

Previous Visits

November 25

Our group visited the House for An Art Lover. This building was completed in 1996 from Mackintosh’s drawings, dating to 1901. The house, as built, is an interpretation of Mackintosh’s plans which was designed as a residential house. It is now home to a large café and exhibition space and also function suites within its Glasgow Style decorated spaces.

October 25

We had a good turn out to attend a talk by one of our members, Brendan Berry on the French-American self-taught artist and ornithologist John James Audubon. One of the artist’s ambitious plans was to compile a pictorial record of all the bird species of America. The Birds of America is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Brendan also explored the author’s contacts in Scotland, including Sir Walter Scott.

In September our Group Leader lead architectural heritage walking tours in the Sauchiehall Street area for two other u3a’s. The first for Sudbury, on a visit to Glasgow, the second for Paisley & District u3a.

Members of Sudbury u3a outside the Mackintosh at the Willow building, Sauchiehall Street

September

Our September outing was a joint meeting with the Gardening group to visit Jupiter Artland. This is an award-winning garden with permanent artworks by major Scottish and British artists. The group very much enjoyed wandering around the grounds discovering works designed specifically for the garden’s woodland area.

A small party from both groups visited Jupiter Artland near Wilkieston, to view the spectacular landscape sculptures and art on view in the grounds of Bennington House. Prominent were works by Charles Jencks, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Tracey Emin. We made our way at own pace in reasonable weather, which broke only after a light lunch at the restaurant on site. This is the second joint visit the groups have made.

August

This heritage walking tour in the centre of Glasgow focused on the sculptural element of historic buildings in the Sauchiehall Street area. The buildings encompassed a range of different types including the frontage of the former St Andrews Halls (now part of the Mitchell Library), domestic dwellings such as Charing Cross Mansions, the former premises of the famous Glasgow photographers T & R Annan & Sons, the former City of Glasgow Friendly Society building (just off Sauchiehall Street in Douglas Street) and ending at the site of a very significant building which was the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. This building, and two major department stores, were demolished in the early 1970s to make way for the brown brick construction that exists here today, originally named the Sauchiehall Street Centre.

June

Our visit in July was to the paper arts workshop of Alison Newman based at the WASPS studios   . Alison runs a hand papermaking workshop and courses for beginners and experienced artists, including evening classes, summer schools, weekend courses and day courses. As the artist notes, papermaking crosses the traditional boundaries of art, craft and design. Participants can produce sculptural items, delicate handcrafted books and can incorporate printmaking techniques such as etching.

We met at Perth Art Gallery in June and had a wonderful tour of the 1930s building and current exhibitions. 

These include the Modern Scot exhibition focusing on artists from the 20^th and early 21^st century. J D Fergusson, and his lifelong partner Margaret Morris, are also included .

Also, the significant collection of Perth Art Gallery’s holdings of the Perthshire glass industry, including Caithness Glass, is on display as a temporary exhibition, reflecting Perth’s accolade as the first UNESCO City of Craft.

The Art Appreciation Group held their Art Chat meeting at Langside Sports Club on 1st May. The theme was portraiture and paintings and sculpture from the 15th through to the 20th century from art collections close to home such as the Burrell Collection to collections in London and New York. 

Our meeting in early February at the House for an Art Lover was a bit of a hiccup! Despite checking the website quite a number of times before our visit, it clashed with another function so we couldn't see around the house. We had a very good natter over tea / coffee in the tearoom though! So, nothing to report from February.

We visited Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre in Trongate. It is a theatrical installation of kinetic or moving sculpture, a collaboration between sculptor-mechanic Eduard Bersudsky, theatre director Tatyana Jakovskaya and light and sound director Sergey Jakovsky.

In November, the Art Appreciation Group visited the studio of Glasgow based artist Lesley Banks. Lesley opened up her home to show us around her studio and had many of her paintings hung throughout the house. Lesley trained at Glasgow School of Art and has had a long and very productive career painting figure studies in interior settings and also landscapes. She enthusiastically answered lots of questions about her inspiration and painting technique.

For the month of October, the Art Appreciation Group visited Glasgow School of Art Archives. The archives are located along the canal side at a former whisky bond warehouse. We were given a magnificent tour by the two staff members who had looked out a selection of paper archives and drawings for us to inspect. This included a very witty letter-drawing from the late John Byrne, a former student during the early 1960s. John penned this letter when it was Glasgow School of Art’s 150th anniversary in 1995. This anniversary was on the same date, 6 January, as John Byrne’s birthday. John’s portrait of himself as a student can be seen at the bottom left of the letter. We also viewed student textile designs, as well as Mackintosh designed furniture. A very significant painting of the Building Committee for the GSA by the Director of the Art School, Francis Newberry, was also pointed out to the group. This painting included Charles Rennie Mackintosh at the side of the composition holding rolled up drawings to represent the building of the Art School.

In September we visited Little Sparta with the Gardening Group. We travelled south to the Pentland Hills to view a large seven acre estate called . The garden was created by Ian Hamilton Finlay - poet/writer/artist/gardener - and his wife Sue. It’s not an elaborate flower garden but a garden full of Finlay’s artwork including stone sculpture with inscriptions, as well as small temple buildings. All the sculptures are integral to the garden.

In July, the Art Appreciation Group spent a wonderful hour wandering around the spectacular Degas exhibition at the Burrell Collection. The exhibition focuses on the various collectors in Scotland, who were interested in Degas’ work, including Sir William Burrell,. Burrell wasn’t the first collector in Scotland but he did amass over 20 works by Degas. All of these works are included in the exhibition and it’s an opportunity to view works owned by other Scottish collectors, including the Paisley thread mill owner Peter Coats. There are loans from major galleries including the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and the Tate London. This exhibition runs until 30 September.

Our gathering in May at Langside Sports Club looked at a range of modern painting and sculpture focusing on the theme of ‘abstraction’. Well known artists were included such as Scottish artists Joan Eardley and the sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi, alongside less well-known names in Scottish art as well as artists who worked in America. We had some interesting discussion and comment!

We attended a very informative visit to the Lillie Art Gallery in Milngavie in March. We were fortunate not just to see the varied exhibitions on show but to go ‘behind the scenes’ to view works from the gallery’s permanent collection. We saw paintings by Bearsden artist Joan Eardley, Maryhill based artist Mary Gallagher, a dramatic orchestra scene by Alberto Morrocco who was a former Head of Painting at Dundee Art College and a print by one of the so-called ‘new Glasgow Boys’, Ken Currie.

In February, the Art Appreciation Group was treated to a very entertaining and informative talk by Blair Cunningham of Glasgow University about the street artist / graffiti artist Banksy. Some of you may have seen his exhibition in Glasgow last summer which broke ‘box office’ attendance records. Blair’s talk placed Banksy’s work within the context of other provocative 20^th century artists.