Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund Scotland, Caring for the Collection is a project that will focus on Art in Healthcare’s vast art collection, enabling us to undertake a programme of maintenance and conservation of artworks currently in our art store.
We are delighted to have the support to recruit two technical roles, who will be dedicated to working with collection artworks and improving how they are stored safely. In November, we appointed Giulia Gentili, our Technician, who brings several years of experience working with a wide range of artists and organisations as an art technician, fabricator and artist.
Followed by the recruitment of our Collection Technician Apprentice, Mina Brennan, who will work closely alongside Giulia. Together, they will review, maintain and restore artworks, with the aim of placing them in hospitals, care homes and community spaces across Scotland. In addition to gaining hands on experience working with the collection, Mina will gain a Museum and Galleries Technician Modern Apprenticeship [SCQF level 7] qualification.
As part of this project, and to celebrate Art in Healthcare’s 35th Anniversary, Mina has launched a blog exploring 35 works from the Art in Healthcare Collection and her findings from her apprenticeship.
Image: ‘Street Scene’ by Caroline McNairn
Welcome to the seventeenth Blog Post from the Collection Technicians!
McNairn’s art is fluid and bold, using colour and form to evoke images of everyday life and nature. This piece ‘Street Scene’ shows figures sat looking at the sea, the colours used create a calm quiet feeling. Another piece by McNairn in our collection is titled ‘Behind the Bush’ it is a vibrant and illustrative screen print using blues and yellows to capture a small part of nature.
Caroline McNairn was born in Selkirk and attended Edinburgh College of Art in 1972. After graduating she was represented by the infamous 369 gallery in Edinburgh alongside the titled “Grand Dames” of Scottish art, a group which included, Joyce Cairns, Pat Douthwaite, Carol Gibbons. Margaret Hunter, June Redfern, Fionna Carlisle, Sheila Mullen and Lil Neilson.
The 369 Gallery was an important influence on Scottish Art, it showed male and female artists equally as well as focusing on showcasing up and coming Scottish graduates. The 369 Gallery was opened by Andrew Brown in 1978. The gallery moved around a little before it received Scottish Arts Council funding and moved into a derelict building in the Cowgate. The space was multifunctional as a gallery as well as artists studios making it a hub of creative activity. The 369 Gallery went on to hold exhibitions internationally in Chicago and Hong Kong as well as Moscow and Sante Fe.
At the 369 gallery McNairn held solo exhibitions as well as running a series of teaching lectures. She met her husband Hugh Collins who was on day release from the Barlinnie Special Unit, a programme that used therapeutic methods and art to help rehabilitate and help prisoners. Collins focused on sculpture when in the unit and continued to create after his release in 1993. The unit showed that art was an effective way to help prisoners rather than the standardised approach of taking rights and decisions away from them. Collins served 16 years of his lifelong sentence before being released.
In 2019 an exhibition titled ‘369 Remembered- The Women’ showed at Summerhall and featured artists such as McNairn and Douthwaite who have been pivotal in the Edinburgh art scene of the 80s and 90s.
McNairns paintings are vibrant and full of life, they focus on shapes and colour as well as showing us how she saw the world. It’s wonderful to be able to see a piece from this time in Edinburgh’s history.
Image: ‘Behind the Bush’ by Caroline McNairn
Caring for the Collection is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund Scotland.
Thanks to National Lottery players, we will be able to dedicate time to improve the condition of our artworks currently in our store, so that they will be able to be displayed in health and social care settings across Scotland.
Museum & Galleries Technician Modern Apprenticeship is supported by Museums Galleries Scotland provider of the apprenticeship, mentor and SCQF level 7
8 July 2026 by
Amy Miles