This year’s Edinburgh Art Festival builds on the success of the previous two years, by showcasing some of the best International, National and Scottish visual arts from blockbuster exhibitions to grass roots artist led projects. As one of the major summer festivals, the Edinburgh Art Festival places visual arts in the heart of August’s international cultural mix. The Edinburgh Art Festival is committed to celebrating, presenting and communicating art of the highest quality. The Festival brings together the individual strengths of the city’s visual arts organisations to put on an international season of exhibitions giving the participating arts organisations and artists a stronger context in which to show their work. This will be enhanced by a strong and wide ranging events programme. Tessa Jackson, Chair of the Edinburgh Art Festival Steering Committee said: “The EAF is about celebrating and raising the profile of the visual arts in Edinburgh at a time when the city stages one of the world’s foremost cultural events. I am delighted that this event is now an annual fixture in the city’s cultural calendar”. Amanda Catto, Head of Visual Arts at the Scottish Arts Council, said: “It is the strength of the visual arts programme and the enthusiasm from the Edinburgh visual arts community that ensures the success of the festival. This year I look forward to seeing even more visitors to the participating galleries over the festival period”. The festival collectively supports major international exhibitions of work on loan from some of the world’s most prestigious collections, artistic talent from Scotland and exciting collaborative projects by artists working across different media including site-specific installations. Among the highlights at the larger galleries and museums in the Edinburgh Art Festival are major exhibitions of work by some of the world’s most renowned artists, reflecting Edinburgh’s place on the world stage, including; Scottish born photojournalist Harry Benson who has photographed every US president since Eisenhower, The Beatles and a whole host of other glamorous celebrities as well as some of the defining moments in recent political history, will exhibit his work for the first time in the UK at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery Beyond the Palace Walls at the Royal Museum exhibits over 170 amazing works of Islamic art dating from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries, all taken from the walls of the winter palace in St Petersburg, and many of which have never been seen before outside Russia.