Faculty unveils new portrait of bench and bar

A bench and bar portrait by award-winning artist Mark Roscoe was unveiled at a ceremony in the Mackenzie Building.

The work had been chosen as one of 220 paintings for a major exhibition by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London, before being delivered to the Faculty.

Commissioned in 2013, it depicts the First Division courtroom in Parliament House, with a Bench of 12 senators, headed by Lord Gill, the Lord President, and Lord Carloway, Lord Justice Clerk.

The Lord Advocate (Frank Mulholland QC) and the Advocate General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness QC) are featured, while the bar is represented by several senior counsel, including Roy Martin QC, Richard Keen QC, James Wolffe QC, Frances McMenamin QC, Laura Dunlop QC,Alan Summers QC, and Gordon Jackson QC.

The portrait was unveiled by Lord Carloway, now Lord President, and hangs opposite another of Mark Roscoe’s works, of Lord Hardie, the former Dean of Faculty, Lord Advocate and Senator of the College of Justice.

Mr Roscoe, recently elected as a full member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, spent his formative years in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and attended the town’s Balwearie High School before studying at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee.

He said: “It (Bench and Bar) was the most difficult and challenging painting I have ever had to do, but that brought a lot of excitement and joy. I am really pleased that the Faculty had faith in me to take it on.”

Gordon Jackson QC, Dean of Faculty, said: “Mark has produced a wonderful portrait, it really is tremendous. It is very easy to think you are looking at a photograph, not a painting, and we are delighted to have the work as part of the Faculty’s collection.”