National Galleries Scotland: Modern (Modern One & Modern Two)Dean Village / Belford

Gwen John: Strange Beauties

Now showingUntil 4 January 2027£14

The first major retrospective in over forty years of the Welsh painter Gwen John, marking 150 years since her birth, with rarely seen drawings and watercolours. At Modern Two.

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On now All of November 2026

On the first wall, Gwen John looks out from a self-portrait, dark hair pulled back, calm and clear-eyed. The Scotsman's critic thought she looked a bit like Emily Dickinson, another woman who put solitude and work above everything else.

Around 200 paintings and drawings fill Modern Two, from a portrait of her sister made at 19 to late watercolours of the view from her window in Meudon, and many drawings are shown for the first time. You pass the same woman in the same wicker chair five times, in the Convalescent series, sometimes reading, sometimes with a pot of tea, and start hunting for what changed.

The Scotsman gave it five stars here, as the Guardian did in Cardiff, but its critic is clear that the work is small and restrained and offers "no easy answers": give it time rather than a quick lap. Tickets are £14, £7 concessions, under-18s free, daily 10am to 5pm until 4 January 2027, with a free Bloomberg Connects guide on your phone.

Editor's pick

The same woman in the same wicker chair, five times, and you start hunting for what changed. The Scotsman gave this retrospective five stars and called the work restrained, with "no easy answers". One for slow lookers.

Look for

A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris
Look for sparse possessions, a wicker chair by a window and an open book: her rented Montparnasse room, painted years before Woolf wrote A Room of One's Own.
The Convalescent series
Five paintings of one model in a wicker chair, sometimes reading, sometimes beside a teapot, a few strands of hair falling across her face.
Portrait of a Girl in Grey
The sitter holds a rosary among the folds of her dress and wears a blue-grey pilgrim's cloak.
The tortoiseshell cats
John drew her cats constantly; the first, Edgar Quinet, was named after the Paris boulevard where she was found.
Lighted windows at night
From her last years in Meudon, tiny paintings of lit windows after dark hang near semi-abstract watercolours of the view from her own window.