Exhibitions

Opening night - Friday 8th June: 7.00 - 9.30pm - light refreshments served, music at 8.00pm Artists, June Bevan Baker and her husband John were known and loved by many friends on the Black Isle. Join us in a celebration of their wonderful garden and the Black Isle they loved in this special exhibition by family and friends including poetry, music, painting, ceramics and film. Artists exhibiting: Kathleen Madigan, Rachel Bevan Baker, James McBride, Rosie Newman. Music: William Conway & Sarah Bevan Baker performing John Bevan Baker and Bach Trine: lyrical acapella trio. Free entry  

Redcastle Art Group is delighted to return to The Stables to present a 4th Annual Exhibition of paintings and drawings. These 14 experienced Highland artists meet every month to work together on the Black Isle with advice from well-known painter Jonathan Shearer. Their exciting work fills The Stables Gallery with a wide diversity of subjects, media and styles, and the show also includes mounted pieces, cards, sketchbooks to peruse and artists to talk to! All are welcome to join the artists on the opening day, Saturday 23rd June, from 2.30 p.m., for drinks and delicious home baking (cakes are important to the Group, and there will also be a special display of these interpreted on canvas by each artist!). Portrait artist William Mather will be on hand during the week to invite you to sit for a lively charcoal sketch to take home. (See website www.spanglefish.com/redcastleartgroup for details). The members of Redcastle Art Group are: Helen ALLAN, Frances BAXTER, Clare BLOIS, Morven BOARDMAN, Margaret COWIE, Elizabeth JOSS, Ruth MACGREGOR, Avril MARR, William MATHER, Margaret McKAY, Gay McKEOWN, Hilma RASK, Katherine SUTHERLAND and Jane WESTON. Free entry

A major exhibition of etchings by international artist, Ian Westacott, chronicling the great elm trees and sweet chestnuts that date back to the grand planting schemes around first Cromarty Castle and then Cromarty House but which are now sadly succumbing to Dutch Elm disease and old age. Background A succession of Cromarty’s eighteenth-century lairds spent fortunes remodelling the estate with ambitious plantings. A planting list of 1756 prepared by John Urquhart of Cromarty’s surveyor and gardener, James May, lists 136,363 trees. His plan of 1753 shows the Gallow’s Hill above the Castle with a spiral ride to the top with twelve radiating avenues offering views of the surrounding county towns and mansions in Moray, Nairn and Easter Ross. At the end of the century the 1794 Statistical Account of Scotland describes how his successor George Ross, who had replaced the castle with a classical mansion, expended considerable sums on “beautifying and enlarging the pleasure-grounds around the house and hill of Cromarty. The latter is covered with firs and forest trees of all kinds, and beautifully interspersed with delightful walks; the grandeur of the prospect from many parts of this hill or south Sutor, is beyond description … and constitutes, upon the whole, the most beautiful variety of land and water that is to be met with in Britain.” The last vestiges of these plantings still survive in the form of majestic elms and gnarled chestnut trees. But after a forty year delay, Dutch Elm Disease, which romped across southern England in the 1970s has found its way across the Cairngorms and is now wreaking havoc across one of the last redoubts of Elms in mainland Britain. Westacott is fascinated by the twisted, gnarled and misshapen forms of ancient elms and sweet chestnuts. His large etchings capture the majestic character of individual specimen trees of the Cromarty Estate on the Black Isle, where he has been working over the last two years. Elms and sweet chestnuts are particular features of the woodlands here (the sweet chestnuts are among the most northern specimens in existence). Sitting outside, come wind or rain, Westacott uses careful observation and meticulous craftsmanship, drawing direct onto large copper plates, to create the initial images. Back in his studio near Dornoch, he works further, refining and adding to the images and choosing papers and inks to produce a limited edition of original prints. John Nightingale, the current laird of Cromarty, who commissioned Ian to undertake this project, said: "At times, it has felt as though Ian was working in a race against time. The elms are dying from Dutch elm disease, and with trees that are hundreds of years old, gales are a regular threat. Ian is a master of the art of etching in the tradition of Rembrandt and Turner and his work provides an extraordinary evocation of a vanishing treescape.” The exhibition at the Stables in Cromarty will display the images close to where the trees are growing. Alongside the exhibition, the Cromarty Arts Trust is publishing a guide so that visitors or local residents can explore the woods around Cromarty and seek out the trees that Westacott has chosen to portray. The exhibition will run at the Stables, Cromarty from 27 July to 5 August 2018. Some of the prints will subsequently be on show at Browns Gallery in Tain. Open daily: 10.00am - 5.00pm (other than Sunday 5th August: 10.00am - 12.00pm) Free entry.  Majority of prints displayed will be for sale.

In 1976 a group of friends and artists from Cromarty put together an exhibition. This became an annual exhibition in the town and this group became known as The Cromarty Group. All these years later members have come and gone but it is the continuous and amazing well of talent in and around Cromarty that makes this exhibition special and has enabled The Cromarty Group to not only keep going but stay interesting and contemporary. This year our Annual Exhibition takes place from Saturday 11th August to Sunday 12th August, 10am - 6pm daily (10am - 4pm on Sunday 12th) . There is something for everyone including paintings, wood sculptures, ceramics, pottery and more…. Please check out our Facebook page for more info. Free entry

Another opportunity to peruse and even purchase, some of the stunning prints by Ian Westacott as part of the Cromarty Treescapes exhibition, held previously at the end of July/beginning of August in the Stables. Ian has spent the last two years capturing and chronicling the great elm and chestnut trees of the Cromarty Estate as they slowly succumb to Dutch elm disease and the ravages of time. In the spirit of DOORS OPEN DAYS, we are welcoming the public into the Old Brewery where you can enjoy a cup of tea or coffee and take in these amazing pictures.  The exhibition catalogue - a work of art in itself - will be available to purchase for £5 a copy.