Carla van de Puttelaar - Facing the Law: Portraits Past & Present

Carla van de Puttelaar (b. 1967) is an internationally acclaimed Dutch photographer and art historian based in the Netherlands. She has always had a keen interest in portraiture and for this collaborative exhibition she has combined her art-historical research into Scottish portraiture from the 17th and 18th century with her practice as an artist. Between 2023 and 2025, she travelled regularly to Scotland to photograph women working in the law. This show brings together around 85 of these contemporary portraits of women, with sitters at the outset of their careers to those trailblazers who have paved the way for the next generation such as the Right Honourable Lady Dorrian, Scotland’s first female Lord Justice Clerk. Their achievements stand as powerful markers of structural change within a profession that, for centuries, excluded women. Displayed alongside these photographs are a small group of 17th and 18th century oil paintings depicting men of the law by leading portraitists of the era including David Scougall, Allan Ramsay, and Henry Raeburn. The contrast is striking, yet the dialogue between these contemporary and historical portraits lies at the heart of the exhibition. Together, they trace a story of exclusion, perseverance and progress.