Scotland Guide
Northeast Scotland
Aberdeen Art Gallery
Address: Schoolhill
Opening time: Mon– Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 2–5pm
Price: Free
Aberdeen's engrossing Art Gallery was purpose-built in 1884 to a Neoclassical design by Mackenzie. You enter via the airy Centre Court, dominated by Barbara Hepworth's central fountain and thick pillars running down from the upper balcony, each hewn from a different local marble. Nearby are a number of the gallery's recent acquisitions of contemporary art, with British work to the fore. The Memorial Court, a calming, white-walled circular room under a skylit dome, serves as the city's principal war memorial. It also houses the Lord Provost's book of condolence for the 167 people who died in the 1988 Piper Alpha oil rig disaster.
The upstairs rooms house the main body of the gallery's painting collection. This includes a superb collection of Victorian narrative art, some decent twentieth-century British painting and a collection of Impressionist art, including works by Boudin, Courbet, Sisley, Monet, Pissarro and Renoir.