Frank Pottinger: Landscape Plotted and Pieced

16 September - 15 October 2023
  • Frank Pottinger, Landscape Plotted and Pieced

    Frank Pottinger

    Landscape Plotted and Pieced

    The Academicians’ Gallery is pleased to present the first posthumous exhibition of sculpture, collages and prints by Frank Pottinger RSA (1932-2022).

     

    Interested in themes of nature, landscape, music and poetry, Frank Pottinger was well-known for his large-scale sculptural work but latterly turned his focus to the more manageable scale of printmaking and ceramics. Pottinger’s abstract forms bring together shapes and patterns from the land as well as symbols based on archaeology.

     

    The title of this exhibition, Landscape Plotted and Pieced, comes from one of Pottinger’s etchings which is in turn based on Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem Pied Beauty. Like Hopkin’s poem, Pottinger’s etching revels in the simple yet sublime beauty of ploughed fields; the soft greens and browns perhaps echoing muted colours under a low winter sky. 

  • The deceptive simplicity in much of Pottinger’s work belies a keen eye and deft hand, translating the shapes, colours and textures of the countryside into abstract structures, always imbued with the comfort of the familiar landscape. Pottinger described his work as ‘vernacular’ in nature in its relation to landscape, archaeology and spoken language. He often intended to draw out the parallels between these elements through the ‘subtle affinities of form’: undulating lines carved in wood or clay speaking of both the rhythms of poetry and the peaks and valleys of the hills. Whether conceived in wood, ceramic or print, this gentle lyricism permeates Pottinger’s work, bringing together the shapes and sounds of the land.

     

    Francis Vernon Hunter Pottinger was born in Edinburgh in 1932, his parents having moved from Shetland to the capital for work. Pottinger began his career as a mechanical fitting apprentice with an engineering firm. After his National Service, he took evening classes at Edinburgh College of Art, building up a portfolio in order to apply for the full-time course. He graduated with a Diploma in Sculpture in 1963 and went on to teacher training before taking up posts in schools in Edinburgh and Fife. In 1973 he took up a position as Lecturer in Art at Aberdeen College of Education where his colleagues included Barbara Rae RSA and Fred Bushe RSA. Living in the Aberdeenshire countryside, Pottinger had the space to make large sculptural works based on the local landscape.

    In 1985 Pottinger returned to Edinburgh, moving into a former factory building in Leith which would serve as both his home and studio. Joining Edinburgh Printmakers in 1996, much of Pottinger’s later work took the form of limited-edition prints. Elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1979 and elevated to Academician rank in 1991, he was the recipient of many awards including the RSA William J. Macaulay Award and the RSA Sir William Gillies Bequest which allowed him to travel to Hungary to explore ceramic and sculpture workshops. Pottinger won several important commissions including ones for the Woodland Trust, Heriot Watt University, the Western Isles Health Board and the Scottish Parliament.

     

    The Royal Scottish Academy is grateful for the support of the artist’s family in the presentation of this exhibition.