Dame Barbara Rae CBE RA

 Charting South -

Exhibition Information

Barbara Rae: Charting South

21 November 2026 – 24 January 2027

Royal Scottish Academy

Concluding the RSA’s bicentenary, a major new exhibition by Dame Barbara Rae CBE RA RSA will be held in the winter of 2026/27, presenting new work from Rae’s recent travels to Antarctica.

The Northwest Passage was the culmination of Barbara Rae’s travels following in the footsteps of her namesake, the explorer John Rae. The resulting body of work drew on the intense colour and light of the Arctic in monumental, luminous paintings. Her interest piqued by the history of exploration, in late 2022 Rae took her work from one pole to the other, travelling to Antarctica to trace the ill-fated journey of explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-17). This exhibition presents a significant body of new work by Rae, relating to locations along Shackleton’s route, including South Georgia and Elephant Island.