Artists who taught at Gray's show how creative knowledge passes between generations.
Never make a head bigger than a melon. That’s the advice Orcadian painter Sylvia Wishart gave to drawing students at Gray’s School of Art. It was a lesson in proportion and humility that stuck with generations of artists. A new exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery uses that phrase as its subtitle, bringing together 140 years of work by people who studied or taught at the school.
Andrew Cranston’s painting May 1968, Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen hangs near the entrance. Cranston studied at Gray’s in the early 1990s, then returned to teach in the painting department from 1997 to 2017. His canvas depicts a moment from the school’s past, painted decades later – a kind of time-folding that captures what the exhibition’s really about: how artists teach other artists, who then teach others, creating chains of influence that loop back on themselves.
Teaching leaves marks
The show traces these connections across over 50 artists. James Cowie’s paintings hang near work by David Blyth. Frances Walker’s pieces sit alongside Amy Benzie’s. Painting, drawing, prints, sculpture, film, video, photography, ceramics, and textiles create visual conversations between teachers and the students who became teachers themselves.
Wishart herself studied at Gray’s in the 1950s after leaving her job at Stromness Post Office. She returned in 1969 to teach painting and drawing, staying until 1987. Her melon advice wasn’t just about measuring heads. It was about looking properly, about humility in the face of what you’re trying to capture.
A commissioning project called Correspondences – Women’s Voice pairs early women artist-educators with contemporary artists: Joyce Cairns with Marie-Chantal Hamrock, Frances Walker with Amy Benzie, Barbara Balmer with Claire Roberts, Lyndsey Gilmour with Sylvia Wishart.
From carpenter to art school founder
Gray’s was founded in 1885 by John Gray, who’d started as a carpenter before becoming a partner in an engineering firm. He funded the school because he’d struggled to get proper training himself. It opened with 96 day students and 322 evening students in a building next door to Aberdeen Art Gallery, connected by a bridge so students could walk straight through to sketch from the collection.
The school moved in 1966 to a modernist building at Garthdee designed by Michael Shewan. The exhibition uses that move as a lens to look at how the school’s identity has shifted over time.
Performing the Archives uses workshops, performances, and drop-in events throughout the show’s run, with artists Kirsty Russell, Phoebe Banks, Caitlyn Main, Rachael Rutherford, Emmajane Kingaby, and Katie Taylor working with current staff and students.
The exhibition runs until 12 April 2026 on Level 2 of Aberdeen Art Gallery. Admission is free.
