EDINBURGH.- Robert Wilson is to be the new Chair of the Trustees of Edinburgh Art Festival it was announced today, Tuesday 9 November 2010. Chairman and owner of Nelsons, the UK’s largest Natural Medicine manufacturer, Robert Wilson and his wife Nicola established the remarkable sculpture park, Jupiter Artland, at Bonnington, just outside Edinburgh in 2008. Wilson takes over as the Edinburgh Art Festival celebrates one of most its successful editions to date. Highlights of 2010 EAF, which has seen visitor numbers pass the 500,000 mark, included critically acclaimed exhibitions by leading international artists such as Joan Mitchell, Martin Creed, Iran do Espirito Santo, Julie Roberts, Edward Weston and Hito Steryl; a hugely popular exhibition, Impressionist Gardens, at the National Gallery on the Mound; installations in public spaces such as Gayfield Square Gardens (Atsuo Okomoto) and Portobello Beach (Miles Thurlow), and a wide range of work by new and emerging talent.

A key development for 2010 was a series of EAF commissions supported by the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund. Four new performative interventions took art out of the gallery and into the streets, further extending the reach of the visual arts during the summer Festival period. Meanwhile Richard Wright’s stunning painting in the stairwell of the Dean Gallery had more than 30,000 visitors and over 4,000 people climbed to the top of Calton Hill to see the Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth installation, Staged, in the City Observatory.

“It is an honour to be appointed Chairman of the Edinburgh Art Festival,” says - Robert Wilson. “The Festival has achieved an enormous amount since its inception. The ambitious commissioning, the unique collaboration of over 35 member galleries and the driving forward of the Visual Arts programme, will ensure that Edinburgh Art Festival is central to the creative future of both Edinburgh and Scotland”

Set up in 2004 to create a platform for Edinburgh’s vibrant visual arts community to showcase work during the summer Festival period, Edinburgh Art Festival has quickly become a force to be reckoned with. As well as exhibitions in established galleries, over the years EAF has increasingly seen work shown in a variety of new and found spaces as well as in the public realm. Packed events programmes, including artist talks, workshops, children’s storytelling tours, music programmes and the popular ART LATE have extended engagement with the visual arts.

Inaugural Chair of the Trustees, Tessa Jackson said: “It has been a huge privilege to be Chair of the Edinburgh Art Festival and to see it grow to become an integral and valued part of the city’s summer Festival offering. EAF has helped to engage with new audiences, developing awareness and understanding of the visual arts, strengthening the city’s reputation as world-class centre for culture and the arts. ”