Wraps come off Sawyer portrait

In 2019, we invited acclaimed Scottish artists Erlend Tait and Pamela Tait, who are based in the Highlands, to come to Inverewe, with a view to creating a new piece in honour of Mairi Sawyer, the daughter of garden founder Osgood Mackenzie. Thanks to the generosity and vision of Mairi, the splendid gardens that she and her father created can be enjoyed by the general public, for in 1952, a year before her death, she gifted the garden to the National Trust for Scotland.

The result of Erlend and Pamela’s commission is the stunning Portrait of Mairi Sawyer as well as a collection of other beautiful works, all of which celebrate Mairi’s legacy at Inverewe through the media of drawing, painting and printmaking. This beautiful collaborative portrait will be unveiled at the launch on Saturday 6 August.

Although delayed by three years due to the pandemic, the exhibition can now be viewed at the Sawyer Gallery, which adjoins Inverewe House at the heart of the garden. The exhibition is open Tuesday–Saturday, from 6 August until 29 October.

Pamela explains: ‘Within our joint exhibition at the Sawyer Gallery, with the main focus being our collaborative portrait of Mairi Sawyer, we have each been exploring the impressions left on us from our time spent at Inverewe Garden.

‘Erlend has taken inspiration by the forms, colours and patterns of the plants, creating a series of watercolour studies, while I have been exploring the form and shapes within various plants, creating a mass gathering of characters who give a sense of being the nature spirits of the gardens.’