In 2025, Glasgow celebrates 850 years since the granting of its burgh charter. This anniversary is more than just a date, it’s an opportunity to reflect on the city’s remarkable journey, to appreciate its heritage, and to question what lies ahead.
The Hunterian Art Gallery’s new display, Bird, Tree, Bell, Fish, Ring, takes this opportunity to heart, offering visitors a thoughtful, creative and layered experience.
Far from being a straightforward historical timeline, the display is a conversation starter. It invites visitors to think critically about Glasgow’s identity, how it was shaped, who contributed to it and how it continues to evolve.
Exploring Glasgow’s Symbols, Stories at the Hunterian Art Gallery
Drawing on a rich selection of 29 carefully chosen objects from The Hunterian’s vast and varied collections, Bird, Tree, Bell, Fish, Ring delves into the symbolic language of Glasgow’s coat of arms: the bird, the tree, the bell, the fish and the ring.
These five elements, deeply connected to the city’s patron saint, St Mungo, are scattered throughout Glasgow’s urban fabric – from bridges and buildings to murals and bus stops – offering constant visual reminders of the city’s deep historical roots.
The motto, “Let Glasgow Flourish,” speaks to a vision of growth and collective wellbeing. But in the context of today’s world, facing environmental challenges and cultural shifts, the display provocatively adds a question mark: ‘Let Glasgow Flourish?’
The addition is subtle but significant. It transforms a proud statement into an open-ended inquiry, prompting us to ask: what does it truly mean to flourish?
The Visual Language of a City
Visual art has long been central to how Glasgow expresses itself, as a city of industry, of imagination and of transformation. From street art to gallery collections, art serves as a lens through which we can understand Glasgow’s layered identity.
This creative legacy gained particular momentum in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time when Glasgow’s industrial wealth helped support a cultural flowering.
At the heart of this movement was The Glasgow School of Art, an institution that nurtured generations of artists, designers and architects, helping to shape the city’s distinct aesthetic voice.
Out of this environment emerged the Glasgow Style, a unique blend of Celtic revival motifs, Art Nouveau curves and influences drawn from across Europe and Japan. It was both decorative and disciplined, intricate yet modern.
One of its most celebrated proponents was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, whose architectural and design work left an indelible mark not only on Glasgow, but on global design history.
Alongside Mackintosh, a group known as the Glasgow Boys brought a fresh perspective to painting. Active in the 1880s and 1890s, these artists, including James Guthrie, EA Hornel and George Henry, rejected academic traditions in favour of realism and natural light, often drawing on rural life and international techniques.
Inspired by French Impressionism and Japanese art, they introduced bold brushwork and new colour palettes to Scottish art, challenging conventional norms and pushing the boundaries of visual storytelling.
Importantly, the story of Glasgow’s visual culture isn’t told solely through its most famous names. Artists like Beatrix Whistler, whose delicate etchings and atmospheric works deserve wider recognition, reflect the broader diversity and richness of the city’s artistic heritage.
Her inclusion reminds us of the many women whose contributions were often overlooked but remain vital to the cultural fabric.
Through sketches and prints, artists have documented the city’s social realities, imagined its possibilities and reshaped its self-image. Creativity here is deeply rooted in everyday life, shaped by working-class ingenuity, cosmopolitan influences and a drive to both reflect and re-imagine the world.
Craftsmanship Across Continents
A core feature of the display is its celebration of human craftsmanship, not just from Glasgow, but from around the world. From a Benin bronze bell to a Shilluk tobacco pipe from South Sudan, from a Native North American ceremonial rattle to traditional Scottish pottery, the exhibition moves across cultures and geographies.
This is not just a showcase of beautiful objects; it’s a recognition of the global threads that have woven into Glasgow’s story.
These objects stand as evidence of skill, community and meaning-making. They remind us that Glasgow’s past, like its present, is shaped by interaction and exchange.
Whether through trade, migration, colonisation or cultural curiosity, the city has never existed in a vacuum. Each object tells a story, not just of where it came from, but of how it came to be part of Glasgow’s evolving identity.
Innovation and Industry: Glasgow’s Industrial Legacy
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Glasgow underwent a remarkable transformation, evolving from a small settlement along the River Clyde into one of the world’s leading industrial hubs.
At the heart of the Industrial Revolution, the city became known for its shipbuilding, engineering, and manufacturing industries. Glasgow’s docks, bustling with activity, connected the city to global trade, while industries like textile mills, steel foundries and locomotive factories shaped its skyline and economic strength.
But Glasgow’s industrial success wasn’t just about production, it was also driven by a culture of innovation. Engineers, architects and skilled artisans pushed the boundaries of technology and design.
Alongside this, technical schools and industrial institutions played a vital role in developing the next generation of inventors, supporting a growing workforce skilled in both traditional and new methods of production.
The city’s industrial expansion was not only a response to global economic changes but also a result of local ingenuity and creativity. It was a period that laid the foundations for Glasgow’s modern identity, one built on both practical achievement and the pursuit of innovation.
This legacy continues to influence the city’s approach to creativity and industry today, with its rich history continuing to inform the future.
Opening this weekend at the Hunterian Art Gallery
Bird, Tree, Bell, Fish, Ring opens on 20 June at the Hunterian Art Gallery. It is a display that honours tradition while inviting transformation. It offers a window into Glasgow’s symbolic language and asks how those symbols might guide us today.
With a global perspective, local relevance, and an open heart, the display invites every visitor to imagine new futures, one object, one idea, one conversation at a time.
So as the exhibition gently asks: Let Glasgow Flourish?
Perhaps the answer lies not just in what we see, but in what we do next.
Bird, Tree, Bell, Fish, Ring is co-curated by University of Glasgow students and combines a fascinating selection of items from The Hunterian collections which represent the symbols on the Glasgow coat of arms.
There are more brilliant blogs stretching right across our collection for you to explore – covering coins, medals and much more!
