JOHN LEIGHTON, director of Edinburgh’s National Galleries of Scotland, has unveiled plans for a partnership with Glasgow city council that will lead to joint exhibitions and long-term loans between the two cities.

The plan signals a change in policy that will give Glasgow a more equal share in the national collection of artworks, which is based in the capital.

Leighton wants the country’s greatest work to be shown in Glasgow venues such as the Burrell Collection and the newly refurbished Kelvingrove Museum, which is due to re-open in July.

“For various historic reasons a partnership has not developed as much as it perhaps should,” he said. “We are hoping to build a healthier relationship in the future.

“The public in Glasgow and the rest of Scotland should expect us to work together to make the national collections as widely available as possible.”

The Belfast-born gallery director claims better partnership agreements are necessary because the age-old rivalry between the two cities has added a psychological distance to the physical one.

“We cannot assume that just because it takes an hour to travel between the two cities everybody in Glasgow has been to Edinburgh to see the national collection,” he added.

Mark O’Neil, head of Glasgow City Council Museums and Galleries, confirmed progress had been made.

“We haven’t arranged any of the exhibitions yet, but we’ve agreed in principle and venues like the Burrell and Kelvingrove seem obvious choices to host the collection in Glasgow,” he said.

He also confirmed that long-term loans of specially selected works were expected.

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