Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art© National Galleries of Scotland Overview

Scotland’s national collection of modern and contemporary art is housed in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Two. Located on either side of Belford Road, 15 minutes’ walk from Princes Street, they are set in stunning parkland, surrounded by outdoor sculptures from artists such as Henry Moore, Rachel Whiteread and Barbara Hepworth.

The Scottish National Gallery of modern Art Two, previously known as the Dean Gallery, was founded in 1999 to show an extensive collection of work by the renowned Edinburgh-born artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi and now also houses an outstanding collection of Dada and surrealist art and literature.

Permanent collection

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art holds more than 5,000 items of 20th-century art. The early part of the collection features Matisse and Picasso, among others; the post-war collection features art by Bacon, Hockney, Warhol and Freud; and the more recent collection includes works by Gormley and Hirst.

In 1994, the Art Fund helped the gallery to acquire Tracey Emin’s Family Suite: 20 drawings dealing with the artist’s archetypal themes of sex, her family, her abortions and Margate

In addition to the Paolozzi collection, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Two's Dada and Surrealist collection features works by Dalí, Miró, Ernst, Magritte and Picasso. It is also home to The Stairwell Project, a large, permanent installation by Richard Wright comprising thousands of individually hand-painted forms.

Art Funded works

Joan Miró’s Maternité is celebrated as one of the masterpieces of his early maturity. A symbolic homage to fertility and womanhood, the painting’s wit comes from its highly distilled images. A female ideogram stands in for a woman, each breast supporting a wriggling child. A sperm-like creature at the centre of the painting reflects the male’s sole role in the process.

Placing six life-size cast iron figures at various points along the Water of Leith, from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to the harbour where the river meets the sea, Anthony Gormley’s 6 Times is the first publicly sited work by the artist in Scotland. Gormley said of the project: ‘It is wonderful to have the chance to make a work that connects so many different parts of this great city. When you see one you will, perhaps, remember another. The idea is to connect to time, weather and place and play part in the making of a scene, a picture, a reality, incomplete without you: the observer.’

Visitor information

Cafés at both venues offer freshly prepared, locally-sourced food with at least one vegetarian option. Maps of a sculpture trail around the grounds are available at the galleries’ main entrances.