While much of the art world’s attention rotates between London, New York, Paris, and Hong Kong, immersing yourself in smaller creative cities can provide a more intimate and immediate experience. One city that can provide this is Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city and the UK’s most dynamic city for visual arts outside London.
As opposed to nearby Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city, with its government-funded, national representations (it is home to Scotland’s National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, and both of its National Galleries of Modern Art), Glasgow has always had the short end of the stick in terms of arts and culture funding. Perhaps one of the best places to collect contemporary art in Scotland is the Royal Scottish Academy, which has its headquarters on Edinburgh’s main thoroughfare, Princes Street. Here, as well as their historical gallery space, they have a space dedicated to those looking to buy art from artists that the academy represents. The dedicated Academicians’ Gallery hosts year-round exhibitions of artworks that can be purchased.
Glasgow, however, lacks such a comprehensive commercial space for collecting Scottish art. Many of the city’s iconic galleries – such as Tramway, the Gallery of Modern Art, and Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum – are owned by Glasgow Life (part of Glasgow City Council) and do not operate a private commercial arm for the arts. As the biggest city in Scotland, this is somewhat surprising. However, it is very much in keeping with other regional cities across the UK, such as Birmingham and Manchester, which have small commercial scenes in comparison to London. But rest assured, this does not mean that the Glasgow art scene is any less dynamic or exciting – these things also make it an exciting, affordable and accessible destination for collectors.
First, more about the city. Glasgow, the third largest city in the UK, is defined by its history of manufacturing, global trade, and shipbuilding. Following the Second World War and the de-industrialisation of the River Clyde, the city went into sharp decline, accelerated by the policies of Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative government between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. At the same time, the legacies of artists and architects such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Mary Mackintosh also strongly resonated with the city and the consciousness of Glaswegians. Partially in recognition of this unique and distinctly tangible cultural and artistic heritage, the city was named European Capital of Culture in 1990. This moment became a catalyst for the contemporary arts in the city, which snowballed into what became termed as the ‘Glasgow Miracle’ – the moniker used to describe the national and global success of artists living and working in Glasgow (the majority of whom studied at the Glasgow School of Art).
Between 1996 and 2024, a total of seven artists from Glasgow have won the Turner Prize; numerous more have been nominated. A Glasgow-based or trained artist is nominated for the annual Turner Prize more often than not, a huge feat for a city of only around one million people. This year, two of the four nominated artists are Glasgow School of Art alumni: Glasgow-born, London-based Jasleen Kaur and Manila-born, London-based Pio Abad. The disproportionate number of artists connected to Glasgow who are nominated for the Turner Prize is the evidence of the city’s success at producing globally-successful artists – and provides strong backing for the often-claimed title of the second art city of the UK.
However, Patricia Fleming, a curator who runs one of the few commercial spaces in the city, says that there was a missed opportunity to build on the momentum of the ‘90s in terms of building local art markets: ‘I do think that we just haven't made a case to really grow a local market around contemporary art in Scotland. You would have thought we would've done this at the time when we had way more visibility than now. Can you imagine if there had been a determined effort to grow a market here in Scotland from the nineties, from when Douglas Gordon won the Turner Prize?’
Prior to the pandemic, Glasgow did have more contemporary commercial galleries. Mary Mary, which occupied a space in a tenement in the very centre of Glasgow, was founded by Hannah Robinson in 2006. The gallery represented and exhibited both local and international artists before it closed suddenly in 2018. However, some commercial venues remain open to the public: Glasgow Print Studio provides opportunities for collectors to purchase works by Scottish printmakers, while Street Level PhotoWorks, usefully located next door, also has a small roster of artists with works for sale.
A couple of minutes walk away, we may find the Modern Institute, which remains perhaps the largest space in the city that exhibits contemporary artists with a commercial arm. The gallery has three spaces in the Merchant City area of Glasgow; its main space on Osborne Street and two smaller spaces in the less-than-salubrious surroundings of the King Street car park. This positioning very much encapsulates Glasgow’s art scene. Some of the city’s most respected and renowned spaces occupy or co-exist with derelict, run-down buildings. Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, which takes place every two years, actually takes advantage of the city’s many misused or empty spaces; festival venues at this year’s festival included the King Street Car Park and a refurbished Victorian school building, alongside more famous venues such as Glasgow Cathedral and the Gallery of Modern Art.
So, when it comes to collecting Glasgow-based artists, where to begin? At first, the lack of commercial spaces in the city may seem daunting for collectors. Despite the small commercial scene in the city, visiting Glasgow itself is crucial to understanding why (and how) so many artists choose to live, work, and show there. While London is dense, vast, and oversaturated, Glasgow has an immediacy and accessibility that makes it an excellent city for art lovers and buyers. Arranging studio visits is easy, as is travel to galleries and museums: you can reach pretty much any place in the city in less than 45 minutes. For example, a train from Tramway (and the many nearby galleries in the Pollokshields and Govanhill) to the city centre takes a grand total of 5 minutes. Glasgow’s key galleries are no more than a 40-minute walk from one another.
Since 2018, Patricia Fleming (of the namesake gallery in the city’s south side) has been organising the Art Car Boot Sale, the closest the city currently has to an art fair. This year’s fair took place at Tramway, one of Glasgow’s most impressive large venues, which hosted the Turner Prize in 2015. Every year in October, visitors are able to buy works by the city’s artists at hugely discounted prices. Fleming differentiates the Art Car Boot Sale from a conventional art fair, as ‘it is a reflection of Glasgow’s DIY art scene, which could only be delivered by the artists themselves’. She likens the importance of the event to an ‘opening up’ of the artist’s studio. Artists are encouraged not to create new work for the weekend-long event, but to ‘invite audiences into the treasure trove of their studios’ instead. This model is very much in accordance with the community-oriented, non-hierarchical model that continues to define Glasgow’s art scene.
Fleming, who has been working as an independent curator in Glasgow and further afield for over 25 years (and running her gallery since 2017), has some excellent advice for collectors looking to buy from artists in cities such as Glasgow. ‘I would say, if you're a collector, go and find the source – visit the cities where the artists work. I would be visiting exhibitions and getting to know the grassroots venues, spending a weekend somewhere like Glasgow and… immersing yourself in the place that informs the work. Catch the openings and plan studio visits. In a city like Glasgow you’ll soon know where you go to meet those artists. If the appeal is everything together under one roof to make it easier for you… then plan a visit to Glasgow during our next Art Car Boot Sale. You can go and see all of the exhibitions across the city, but also know you can actually go home with artwork from artists you hadn’t picked up on before.’