Kate Whiteford

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(born 1952) is a Scottish artist. Her work includes painting, screen prints, textiles, land art and installations.

Early life and education

Whiteford was born in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

in 1952, and studied at the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; ) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and design. These are all awa ...

from 1969 to 1972, followed in 1974–1976 with a degree in Art History from the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

. In 1997 a

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...

scholarship enabled her to travel to Italy where she was struck by the frescoes of

Pompei Pompei (; ), also known in English as Pompeii ( ) after the name of the ancient city, is a city and in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy. It contains the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History Modern Po ...

and

Herculaneum Herculaneum is an ancient Rome, ancient Roman town located in the modern-day ''comune'' of Ercolano, Campania, Italy. Herculaneum was buried under a massive pyroclastic flow in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Like the nearby city of ...

with their classical images and reduced range of colours.

Career

Whiteford is heavily influenced by archaeology, drawing inspiration from the local

Pictish art The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. The name appears in w ...

. Her work spans textiles, video, land art, prints and painting. One of her works, an untitled 1988

screenprint Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen in a "flood stroke" to ...

, is in the permanent collection of the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

. She designed ''Corryvrechann tapestry'' for the opening of the then Museum of Scotland in 1998. It measures and was woven by Dovecot Studios. Since 2003 it has hung in Hawthornden Court in the now

National Museum of Scotland The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a museum of Scottish history and culture. It was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, ...

. In 2015 the museum's conservation team took down the tapestry and moved it to a freezer where it was kept at -30 degrees for a week to eradicate moths.

Corryvreckan The Gulf of Corryvreckan (from the Gaelic ''Coire Bhreacain'', meaning 'cauldron of the speckled seas' or 'cauldron of the plaid'), also called the Strait of Corryvreckan, is a narrow strait between the islands of Jura and Scarba, in Argyll ...

, between the islands of Jura and

Scarba Scarba () is an island, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, just north of the much larger island of Jura. The island has not been permanently inhabited since the 1960s. Until his death in 2013 it was owned by Richard Hill, 7th Baron Sandys; its ...

, is the world's third largest whirlpool. She has made a series of land art works, including her 2001 ''Shadow of a Necklace'' in the grounds of Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute. This comprised a drawing of a necklace, dug into a large lawn and filled with silver sand, planted in 2003 with grass seed which left a darker shadow on the lawn, gradually to fade away. It was inspired by a jet (gemstone), jet necklace found in a Bronze Age burial site at the site.

Exhibitions

In 1990, she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale as part of ''Three Scottish Sculptors'' along with David Mach and Arthur Watson. Whiteford's work has also been included in other group shows, including, * ''Expressions: Scottish Art 1976–1989'', 2000 * ''Scottish Artists Prints,'' 1996, 1995, 1990 * ''From Art to Archaeology'', 1991, 1992 In 2018, the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontë Parsonage commissioned Whiteford to create a work about Emily Brontë’s hawk Nero, resulting in a video installation accompanied by a series of works on paper.

Recognition

Whiteford was appointed

in the 2001 Birthday Honours "For services to Art". The National Portrait Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery holds a photographic portrait of Whiteford, by Heather Waddell, 1993.

References

External links