- 19 November 2026
- 2:30 – 4:00 pm
- The Fine Art Society
A panel discussion to celebrate the publication of David Wilkie: The Complete Paintings by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in November 2026.
Written by Hamish Miles (1925–2017) and edited by Alex Kidson, this catalogue is the culmination of decades of research into the work of the major and hugely influential Scottish artist Sir David Wilkie (1785–1841). The first complete catalogue of Wilkie's paintings, it also includes examination of his influences, research into those who commissioned and purchased his pictures, and analysis of the prints that disseminated his work and secured his international reputation.
This panel discussion will explore the long and complex process behind this publication, from Miles's extensive research into Wilkie from the late 1960s onwards, to Kidson's recent work on shaping the manuscript into the current two-volume publication. It will consider the business of creating such a catalogue raisonné more broadly, as well as the specific issues involved in drawing together the oeuvre of this particular artist. Above all, it will examine consider the changing critical fortunes of a painter who was one of the most famed and celebrated artists of his age, but who has only recently been re-gaining the serious attention he deserves.
Panel Members
- Alex Kidson, author of the George Romney catalogue raisonné (2015), and editor of David Wilkie: The Complete Paintings (2026).
- Paul Spencer-Longhurst, author of the Richard Wilson online catalogue raisonné (2014), and literary executor to Hamish Miles.
- Charlotte Topsfield, Senior Curator of British Drawings and Prints at the National Galleries of Scotland, with particular expertise on Wilkie drawings.
- Nick Tromans, curator of the 2002 David Wilkie exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and author of David Wilkie: The People's Painter (2007).
- Ben Elwes, co-director of Ben Elwes Fine Art, which has placed a number of works by Wilkie in important international museum collections.
Admissions
Tickets are free, but booking is essential.
Venue
The Fine Art Society, 6 Dundas St, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ
Panellist biographies
Alex Kidson (editor) is a former curator of British painting at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and author of the catalogue raisonné of the paintings of George Romney, published by the Paul Mellon Centre in 2015.
Paul Spencer-Longhust has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre since October 2009. His project, to research and compile a catalogue raisonné of the paintings and drawings of Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), has resulted in Richard Wilson Online. This initiative aims to revise, update and integrate the catalogue raisonné of Richard Wilson by W.G. Constable (1953) and Brinsley Ford's The Drawings of Richard Wilson (1951).
Charlotte Topsfield is Senior Curator (British Drawings and Prints) at the National Galleries of Scotland and a specialist in Scottish works of art on paper. She has curated exhibitions and displays on a range of 18th- to 20th-century artists, including David Allan, David Roberts, David Wilkie, Edward Lear, William McTaggart and the Glasgow Boys, and is responsible for the annual Edinburgh exhibition of the Vaughan Bequest of watercolours by JMW Turner. Major projects include Arthur Melville: Adventures in Colour (2015), Turner and the Poetics of Landscape (2017) and Turner in January: Ireland’s Vaughan Bequest (2025), in collaboration with the National Gallery of Ireland. Having previously worked at Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, most recently Charlotte curated the Edinburgh showing of Gwen John: Strange Beauties, a partnership with Amgueddfa Cymru, Yale Center for British Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC.
Nicholas Tromans studied Philosophy and the History of Art at Cambridge University before completing a PhD thesis at Birmingham University on David Wilkie’s Spanish subjects. He has worked in museums, universities and auction houses, and has published extensively in the field of nineteenth-century art.
Among his books are a monograph on Wilkie (The People’s Painter, Edinburgh University Press, 2007), The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting (Tate Britain exhibition catalogue, 2008), Richard Dadd: The Artist and the Asylum (Tate, 2011), Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (with Susan Owens, Yale 2018) and The Private Lives of Pictures: Art at Home in Britain 1800–1940 (Reaktion 2022).
For many years he has had a special interest in the relationships between art and psychiatry, and has regularly published in this field. He was the curator of the 2026 Royal Academy exhibition Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam. Tromans is now an officer in the Prison and Probation Service in London, while maintaining his art-historical research interests.
Ben Elwes has worked in the international fine art market for nearly 40 years. Between 1993 and 2004 he was a director of Elwes and Hanham, old master paintings dealers based in Old Bond Street. In 2004 he founded Ben Elwes Fine Art along with his wife Rachel Layton Elwes, who had previously worked as a museum curator in the US and the United Kingdom. Ben Elwes Fine Art is a private dealership that sells works of art from the 14th century to pre-contemporary to international museums and specialist collectors.
Image caption: David Wilkie, The Reading of a Will (detail). Cincinnati Art Museum, John J. Emery Endowment (2026.10)