It is a requirement of everyone who is elected to the Royal Scottish Academy to deposit an example of their current practice into our Diploma Collection. The first works entered the Diploma Collection in 1831, five years after the RSA was founded.
Despite this, there have been some Members who have not complied, such as Adam Bruce Thomson. A highly respected Member who was actively involved in numerous aspects of the Academy, Thomson waited 15 years to lodge his Diploma Collection deposit.
Adam Bruce Thomson RSA, Park and Ruined Abbey
Other artists are not represented by a Diploma work thanks to the materials they deployed. The use of bitumen mixed with oil paint, which gives wonderfully deep passages of light and shade, was popular amongst many of our Members. However, bitumen has different drying properties to oil paint, and this can lead to unsightly ‘crocodiling’ of the paint surface, the cracking often revealing lighter ground paint below. Whilst current conservation techniques can minimize such disfigurement, this hadn’t always been the case. David Octavius Hill, our celebrated second Secretary’s Diploma deposit was lost to the past for this reason.
As part of the major Collections Rationalization project which concluded in 2013, a new annexe was created in our Collections store for the Diploma Collection. This enabled us to identify quality works by Members who, for whatever reason, were no longer represented. The first work to be acquired under this initiative was a large and impressive view of the River Tay at Perth by David Octavius Hill, who was born and raised in the city.
Today the Diploma Collection gives fascinating overview of almost 200 years of our history. The collection represents hundreds of members, mediums and styles. The first mixed media work deposit was made by painter Will Maclean in 1991, and the first multi-discipline work, which features a painting, a digital film and two digital photographs was made by Derrick Guild in 2016.
Derrick Guild RSA, Follower
Further details about works in our Diploma Collection can be found by visiting our Collections online portal, or in the book Portfolio, Treasures from the Diploma Collection at the Royal Scottish Academy, by Tom Normand HRSA, copies of which are available from our Academicians’ Gallery.
About the author
Robin Rodger
Robin H. Rodger graduated as O. E. Saunders Prizeman in Art History from the University of St Andrews in 1983, before taking his Diploma in Art Gallery and Museum Studies at the University of Manchester in 1984. The next 26 years were spent at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, and since 2013 he has been Documentation Officer with the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture. A keen researcher, he has lectured and published widely on Perthshire artists and Perth silver, and is currently engaged in research projects relating to aspects of print and printmaking in Scotland.
