Royal Collection Trust and Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) are collaborating on a new artist residency for the upcoming major exhibition Drawing the Italian Renaissance at The King’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse.
The artists Phoebe Leach and Dette Allmark, both ECA alumni, will be responding to the masterpieces on display and will be drawing in the Gallery throughout the exhibition’s run, with their creations forming a changing display for visitors.
The residency is the first at The King’s Gallery in Edinburgh. Drawing the Italian Renaissance, which opens on 17 October 2025, will be the widest ranging exhibition of Italian Renaissance drawings in Scotland for over 50 years. Works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Titian are among more than 80 works on display, with 45 drawings going on show in Scotland for the first time.
The residency programme will demonstrate how drawing remains a vital practice for artists today, just as it was for the artists of the Italian Renaissance. Visitors to the exhibition will also be encouraged to take inspiration from the works on display and try their hand at drawing, with pencils and paper freely available in the Gallery.
Royal Collection Trust is a charity caring for the Royal Collection, an art collection of more than a million objects, held in trust by The King for his successors and the nation. The Collection can be seen in palaces, museums and galleries across the UK and around the world, and can be explored online.
Phoebe Leach was raised in Lincolnshire and graduated from ECA in 2024 with a BA (Hons) Painting. Drawing has been critical to her work - as a painter and printmaker, she explores how people experience and interact with the world around them, with drawing allowing her to shed light on often unseen spaces.
Since October 2024, Phoebe has been documenting the work of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Drawing brain surgeries and operations from life, she has created a unique record of the unit’s surgical activities and the experiences of patients.
She said: “It’s a real privilege to have the opportunity to be a part of this residency so early in my career, just a year after graduating. I’m looking forward to spending time with the works in the exhibition – studying the techniques of the Old Masters to refine my own technical drawing skills, while also creating contemporary interpretations in response. Most of all, I’m excited to record the activity of visitors and their interaction with the exhibition to create live response drawings in the Gallery space.”
Dette Allmark, who graduated with a BA (Hons) Tapestry in 2000 and MA Illustration in 2022, as well as spending a year at the Royal Drawing School in 2007, is an established artist, illustrator and writer who has been a long-term resident of Edinburgh.
Drawing forms the basis for all Dette’s work, but it has increasingly grown in importance for her as an art form in its own right. It provides a way for her to process the world around her to make sense of her life and experiences, with much of Dette’s work exploring the themes and experiences of the role of women. Dette is currently a visiting artist to Scottish Opera in Glasgow, observing and drawing from rehearsals and live performances.
She said: “The characters and worlds created by the Renaissance artists not only capture beauty, ignite awe and tell stories but also allow us to see that these artists scrutinised their world, the imagined world and its characters to understand more about themselves, humanity and spirituality. I draw to make sense of my experiences, and I hope the visitors will be inspired to revisit what it is to play with a pencil, lay their judgement aside and conjure up a visual world that is uniquely theirs.”
