Founded nearly 150 years ago, the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour has long championed watercolour and water-based media and its Annual Exhibition highlights the versatility and relevance of these artforms.

‘The show demonstrates the variety of work, from the meticulously detailed to the free and expressive. It reflects both the strength of traditional skills and the continuing freshness and energy of the artists’. – Anthea Gage, RSW President  

The 2026 event features 350 paintings by established and emerging artists, from RSW members to work selected from an open submission by non-members. As always, the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh is a grand setting to display contemporary landscapes and portraits, still-lifes and botanical studies.

Merging abstraction and landscape to capture the atmosphere of place, Christopher Wood’s oblong, vertically-oriented, Flight and Fall, catches the eye from across the gallery.

With sharply compressed contours, the shimmering gold-yellow and fiery red fields are a powerful anchor for the loose teal, turquoise and orange marks, splattered with calligraphic rhythm. The varied brushwork, intricate layers and scrapes create a rough, cracked surface over the lower pale, buttercream plane suggest the natural erosion of the environment.  Sophisticated in its asymmetrical balance, experimental in its energetic flourish, the precise palette and pattern evoke a landscape trapped between elevation and descent, shifting through the passage of time.