Female Voices in Art: Elizabeth Cumming, Art Historian and Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh
“Women are thankfully now far more accepted on equal terms both as artists and as curators than when I started out in the 1970s.“
Elizabeth Cumming (b. 1948, Edinburgh, Scotland) majored in art history and mathematics for a general degree at the university of Edinburgh before taking a postgraduate diploma in art history, also at Edinburgh. She was an assistant to Dr Isabel Henderson on the national survey of Pictish symbol stones before spending three years as a curator in Dundee. From 1975 as the first Keeper of Fine Art with Edinburgh Council, she prepared the first catalogue of the city’s art collection and worked with the city architects on today’s City Art Centre. A lecturer in design history at Edinburgh College of Art in the 1990s, she is an independent historian and curator and currently an honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh. Her books, catalogues and essays include many on Scottish art from James Drummond to the Scottish Colourists. They include notably Hand, Heart and Soul: the Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland (2006), Weaving the Century: Dovecot Studios since 1912 (2012), Robin Philipson (2018) and Phoebe Anna Traquair (2022).
Could you tell us something about your role in the art world?
With a distant family background in Scottish art and design (my great-great-grandfather was a Paisley pattern designer and photographer, married to a cousin of Victorian landscape painter Horatio McCulloch, and their son Dovecot Studios’ first tapestry designer) I have long been interested in Scottish art and enjoy exploring and documenting artists’ lives.
What did you enjoy about being a part of this project?
Being persuaded to join a league of extraordinary sitters from the art world.
Do you have a favourite artist?
It has to be the Scottish portraitists Allan Ramsay or Henry Raeburn, two of the most remarkable painters Scotland has ever produced.
What is your earliest memory involving art?
Growing up in a house surrounded by the family watercolours and early nineteenth-century engravings collected by my grandfather. Also, my first visit to the Scottish National Gallery at about age six when Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait The Hon. Mrs Graham and Robert Alexander’s The Happy Mother (a painting of a dog with puppies) of course were my favourites!
Do you have any special thoughts about the position of women in the art world?
Women are thankfully now far more accepted on equal terms both as artists and as curators than when I started out in the 1970s.
What are you wearing, and is there a story behind it?
This was very much an impromptu session so I am simply wearing a comfortable woollen top and scarf to keep warm on a cold early March day. Sadly there is no real story.
What are you currently working on?
I am preparing the volume ‘Arts, Crafts and the Celtic Revival’ in the series Sources for the Study of Scottish Art in the industrial Age 1800-1914 (Routledge) led by Professor Frances Fowle.
Could you mention a project, an institution that, or a person who has been important or inspiring for your career and why?
There are too many to mention, but certainly some of my first art history tutors such as Professor David Talbot Rice were deeply inspirational. Others have been so supportive. For instance, I had such generous help in the mid-2000s from archivists and museum curators nationwide when preparing the book Hand, Heart and Soul: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland and the huge follow-up exhibition.
