Philip Reeves RSA, Cliff Top
President’s Room and Friends’ Corridor, RSA Lower Galleries
Continuing the retrospective exhibition of the pioneering printmaker and collagist Philip Reeves RSA (1931-2017), this exhibition displays the collages and paintings which will be accessioned into the permanent collection of the RSA from the Philip Reeves Studio Gift. The exhibition is complemented by a selection of Reeves’ studio items, placed within Richard Murphy’s Wunderkammer cabinet, last seen during Ages of Wonder.
Reeves brought the tenets of European Modernism to Scottish art, creating collages and prints that centre on the formation of shape, line and colour. Known for his economy of form and appropriation of scrap materials, Reeves was a virtuosic printmaker and is credited with reinvigorating the practice in Scotland. Vitally important in the elevation of the status of printmaking from that of a craft to that of an art form in Scotland, Reeves’ revolutionary approach is celebrated in this exhibition comprising works from the studio gift bequeathed to the RSA.
