The Long Look: Audrey Grant and Norman McBeath at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery

December 7, 2018

25 May – 27 October 2019
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh EH2 1JD 0131 624 6200 | Admission FREE #NGSLongLook

The Long Look explores a unique creative exchange between two artists. The painter Audrey Grant and photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath developed an unconventional ‘artist and sitter’ relationship when Grant asked McBeath to sit for a portrait in charcoal. At the end of each sitting, Grant asked McBeath to photograph the drawing she had made that day. She would then erase her drawing at the start of the next sitting and begin the portrait anew. Intrigued by Grant’s working methods, McBeath began to photograph aspects of this process, such as the sitter’s chair, Grant’s hands, and the charcoal she used. Grant completed the portrait after two years of sittings and, in tandem, worked on a separate portrait of McBeath, as well as two long- durational portraits of the award-winning crime writer Val McDermid. The four finished portraits, along with images of all the versions of the drawings that no longer exist, and McBeath’s own photographs, will be on display in this fascinating and revelatory exhibition. Click here for more information.