Room 4: Portraits of Academicians

James Good Tunny (1820–1887) was a professional photographer who established a thriving business in Edinburgh during the 1850s. He recalled that, as a young man in the 1840s, he would stand on Calton Hill overlooking the Rock House studio of David Octavius Hill RSA and Robert Adamson, watching them make their photographs outdoors whenever there was sufficient sunlight. 

He later wrote, ‘Oh, if only I could have got an introduction to these men, it would have been a consummation of my happiness!’

Tunny did eventually meet D. O. Hill, and it was probably on Hill's recommendation that he was commissioned to make a series of portraits of Royal Scottish Academicians. A selection is displayed here, reproduced from an album in the Royal Scottish Academy collections. Tunny's portraits mark the beginning of the RSA's long tradition of commissioning photographic portraits of Academicians. They remain not only the first, but among the most atmospheric. 

A century later, Joseph McKenzie, widely regarded as the father of modern Scottish photography, photographed Sir William Gillies RSA at home and in his studio. Gifted to the RSA as part of the Gillies Bequest in 1973, these images reflect a fresh, modern approach to portraying the artist at work.