The Fleming Collection

The Fleming Collection is a large private collection of Scottish art based in London, United Kingdom. Originally assembled as a corporate collection for the walls of Robert Fleming & Co. bank, it occupied a dedicated gallery on Berkeley Square in central London from 2002 until that gallery's closure in 2016. It now functions as a loaning and touring collection, operating under the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation. The collection is recognised as one of the most significant holdings of Scottish art outside Scotland, spanning from the mid-17th century to the present day.

The collection began in 1968 when Robert Fleming & Co., a Scottish banking firm founded in Dundee, moved to a new building in Crosby Square in the City of London. David Donald, one of the bank's directors, was tasked with directing art purchases, with the sole guideline that works should be by Scottish artists or depict Scottish scenes, reflecting the bank's Scottish heritage. Scottish art was then largely unknown outside Scotland, keeping prices low and allowing rapid accumulation. Donald died unexpectedly in 1985, the same year he was elected an Honorary Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy. Robert Fleming and Bill Smith continued the collecting; Smith became the first Keeper of Art and shifted focus toward living Scottish artists while moving the collection to Copthall Avenue. By the 1990s the collection had gained international recognition. Selina Skipwith succeeded Smith as Keeper of Art. In March 2000, when Flemings bank was sold to Chase Manhattan Bank, the Fleming family funded the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation to purchase the collection at market value. James Knox, former managing director of The Art Newspaper, became Director in 2015 and oversaw the transition to a museum-without-walls model.

The collection contains over 600 artworks ranging from the mid-17th century to the present. Its scope encompasses a broad spectrum of Scottish artistic production, with particular depth in 18th and 19th-century painting, Scottish Impressionism, the Glasgow Boys, the Scottish Colourists, and 20th-century modern and contemporary Scottish art. The collection's development under successive keepers shifted from decorative corporate acquisitions toward a more active, curatorial approach that included supporting living artists and lending to major exhibitions.

From the 18th and 19th centuries, the collection holds works by Allan Ramsay, Henry Raeburn, Jacob More, Sir David Wilkie, and the Scottish Impressionist William McTaggart. It includes significant images of the Highland Clearances: Thomas Faed's The Last of The Clan and John Watson Nicol's Lochaber No More. The Glasgow Boys are strongly represented through Arthur Melville, John Lavery, Sir James Guthrie, Edward Arthur Walton, Joseph Crawhall, and Edward Atkinson Hornel. The Scottish Colourists are a particular strength, with works by Samuel John Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter, and Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell. Twentieth-century holdings include James Cowie, Stanley Cursiter, Anne Redpath, William Johnstone, William George Gillies, William Geissler, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Robert Colquhoun, Alan Davie, Joan Eardley, Craigie Aitchison, Elizabeth Blackadder, David McClure, John Byrne, Will Maclean, John Bellany, Alison Watt, and Jock McFadyen.

From 2002 the collection was housed in a newly designed gallery on Berkeley Street in central London's Mayfair district, near Berkeley Square. In June 2010 a second gallery was opened within the premises to accommodate changing exhibitions of emerging and established Scottish artists alongside collection works. The gallery closed in March 2016, ending the collection's fourteen-year period of public exhibition at this central London location.

The Fleming Collection is a private collection owned by the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation, a charitable foundation established by the Fleming family. Since the March 2016 closure of the Berkeley Street gallery, it no longer operates from a fixed public venue. It now functions as a loaning and touring collection based in London, presenting exhibitions across the United Kingdom that focus on collection highlights such as the Scottish Colourists and the Glasgow Girls and Boys. Individual works continue to be lent to prestigious institutions throughout the UK and Europe.