A FAMILY-RUN art gallery on the Isle of Skye is to close its doors for the last time after 50 years.
Orbost Gallery was founded by David and Marion Roberts in 1977 and has hosted a variety of artworks from artists across the Scottish islands, but the family have decided to make the tough decision to close for good.
Formerly located in the old servants’ hall at Orbost House, the gallery showcased oil paintings by David and watercolours by Marion, with other artists amongst the island's communities shortly joining them on display.
The gallery moved over the road from Orbost House to the family’s home in the later years but still kept its name.
The gallery cemented itself amongst Skye’s community as Marion extended her artistic repertoire to include calligraphic design and began painting signs for local businesses while David turned his hand to restoration work of other artworks.
Kate McEwen, daughter of David and Marion, said with her father sadly no longer alive and her mother who is now 90 years old, it was time to draw close to the family-run gallery.
“There's still a lot of wonderful stuff that my mum and dad painted over the years and prints and calligraphy still there,” McEwen said as she aims to try and find new homes for the last of her parents' works.
McEwen said that initially her parents wanted to run an painting holidays, but it didn’t pan out, so they turned their hands to running their own gallery which has been visited by people from all around the world.
“I just remember in the early days that they divided it up, my dad was like, ‘well I want to do oil painting’, so my mum was going to have to do watercolors.
“And she became such an accomplished watercolourist, but she also did portraits of quite a lot of the more well-known characters on Skye and calligraphy too.
“She used to do sign painting before that went sort of digital and automated, I mean they basically did everything they could turn their hand to.”
McEwen said that she is sad to see the gallery close as she grew up with her parents running it and is “amazed” at what they managed to achieve.
She added that as much as her parents helped the local community, the people on the island also supported the gallery over the years as people have paintings by her parents in their houses all over Skye.
The gallery will be open to the public for just two more occasions, the first and third weekend of March, where McEwen hopes that people can enjoy her parent's paintings for one last time before the much-loved space is closed for good.
