Norman McBeath is a photographer, printmaker and member of the Royal Scottish Academy. The National Portrait Galleries in London, Edinburgh and Canberra have over seventy of his portraits in their collections. Portraits held in the National Portrait Gallery, London can be seen here.

The rich history of Perdendosi, a recent collaboration with Edmund de Waal, has been added to with an exhibition at Dalkeith Palace, just south of Edinburgh as part of PHOTODalkeith 2025.

The setting, originally the most private room in the palace, is in perfect harmony with this delicate study of leaves at the held, drawn-out stage of their metamorphosis, where they're poised on the cusp of decay and eventual disintegration - more like parchment than plant. Perdendosi offers familiar subjects of study, freighted with associations and symbolism, giving each viewer the opportunity to make their own interpretations.

The intimate atmosphere brought by its Rococo style decor is also beautifully in tune with Edmund de Waal's own train of thought and associations in his accompanying text Twelve Leaves. This is a uniquely personal, oblique and moving text, in which he draws from poets including Proust, Goethe and Celan in exploring his own emotional response to living with the photographs.

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CURRENT

DALKEITH PALACE: Perdendosi, a collaboration with Edmund de Waal, as part of PHOTO Dalkeith 2025, 30th August - 5th October 2025

RECENT

KIRKUDBRIGHT: Kirkudbright Galleries, Dumfries and Galloway. Scottish Landscape Awards. 5th July - 28th September 2025

AUSTRALIA: Home of the Arts, Gold Coast. Portrait of the poet Linton Kwesi Johnson on loan from the National Portrait Gallery, London. 'Writers Revealed', "Treasures from the British Library and National Portrait Gallery, London" 12th April - 3rd August 2025

TORUŃ: Faculty of Fine Arts, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland. Showing with Prism Print International alongside leading printmakers from eighteen countries, 28th May - 26th June 2025

EDINBURGH: Royal Scottish Academy, 199th Annual Open Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound, Edinburgh. 3rd May - 8th June 2025

EDINBURGH: Exceptional Subjects, a collaboration with Melissa McCarthy, Studies in Photography Gallery. 5th April - 3rd May 2025

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