Arts / Museum to host major exhibition on Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid
SHETLAND Museum and Archives is to host a landmark exhibition next year exploring the life of poet Hugh MacDiarmid, who lived in Whalsay in the 1930s.
The exhibition Outwith: Valda, MacDiarmid and Whalsay is brought to Shetland as part of national celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA).
In collaboration with the National Library of Scotland, the exhibition will provide an in-depth look at the Scottish poet and essayist, and how his time in Shetland shaped his writing.
MacDiarmid – whose real name was Christopher Murray Grieve – spent nine years in Whalsay from 1933 and despite poverty, ill-health and isolation, wrote half of his life’s work there.
RSA said the exhibition will examine MacDiarmid and his wife Valda’s lives in Shetland and its “profound influence on his poetry through rare manuscripts, original artworks, letter and photographs”.
Collection manager Tracy Hawkins said everyone at the museum was delighted to contribute to the RSA’s bicentenary celebrations.
“The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid’s connection to the RSA as an Honorary Academician, while celebrating the lives and creative legacy he and his wife, Valda, forged during their years in Whalsay and the ways in which the island shaped their work,” she said.
“We look forward to sharing original manuscripts and personal letters from the NLS alongside works by RSA artists, highlighting how national collections and regional stories can come together in meaningful and inspiring ways.”
The exhibition will open on 28 March and run for three months until 20 June 2026.
Shetland Arts will meanwhile host an exhibition on discovering how artists capture life in motion.
A date for the Drawn to Move: The Living Line exhibition, featuring Ronald Forbes and George Donald, has not been confirmed yet.
The two events in Shetland are part of a programme of celebrations throughout 2026 featuring more than 100 partners nationally, including a series of major exhibitions at the RSA in Edinburgh. Founded in 1826, the artist-led organisation with links to every part of Scotland is one of the oldest and most prestigious cultural institutions in the country.
RSA director Colin Greenslade said: “This ambitious anniversary celebration will bring partners and communities together to celebrate the cultural history and present influence and connections of the Royal Scottish Academy across Scotland and beyond.
“This bicentenary celebration offers a fantastic opportunity to spotlight our unique independent heritage, our connections to (and support of) Scotland’s contemporary artists and architects; and to pave the way for the future prosperity of the visual arts in Scotland.”
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