Free entry | Building accessibility
Mon to Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 12-5pm
RSA Lower Galleries
Following the hugely popular exhibition Barbara Rae: The Northwest Passage in 2018, we're thrilled to present a major new exhibition, Barbara Rae: Charting South, as a highlight of our bicentenary year.
The Northwest Passage was the culmination of Barbara Rae’s travels following in the footsteps of her namesake, the explorer John Rae. The resulting body of work drew on the intense colour and light of the Arctic in monumental, luminous paintings. Her interest piqued by the history of exploration, in late 2022 Rae took her work from one pole to the other, travelling to Antarctica to trace the ill-fated journey of explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-17). This exhibition presents a significant body of new work by Rae, relating to locations along Shackleton’s route, including South Georgia and Elephant Island.
Born in Falkirk, Dame Barbara Rae RSA RA studied painting at Edinburgh College of Art (1961-1965). Travelling to France and Spain on a postgraduate scholarship, her early work drew upon trends of abstraction and mixed media practices in European art at the time. Since her first solo exhibition in Edinburgh in 1967, she has gone on to exhibit worldwide. She was elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1980 and became a full Member in 1992. In 1996 she was elected a Member of the Royal Academy. She holds honorary doctorates from Napier University, Aberdeen University and the University of St Andrews, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College. Rae was made a dame in the New Year’s Honours 2025.
