YOU ARE IN safe hands when you visit Elizabeth Blackadder's retrospective exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery. After all she is, as the catalogue blurb states, one of Scotland's most popular artists and a highly respected figure.

It is indeed remarkable the way this retired Edinburgh College of Art lecturer, who is 80 this year, has stayed the course (her first Edinburgh exhibition was in 1959).

Others there, Caroline McNairn, 1994

Blackadder is not only the first woman artist to have been admitted into the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy, but ten years ago she became Her Majesty's Painter and Limner in Scotland (a position once occupied by Sir Henry Raeburn).

The recently widowed Dame Elizabeth (her husband, John Houston, died in 2008) is a much-loved Edinburgh figure and it is easy to see why. This retrospective (spanning 60 years of her work), is full of warmth, colour and energy. Not only is she an excellent draughtsman, but she is versatile in technique and materials, which include pencil, pen and ink, water colour, oils, etchings, lithographs, print-making and tapestry.

Your humble ArtWork reporter was drawn to her early work (perhaps the later analytically observed water colours of flowers are too familiar to make an impact as lately they have been reproduced and used to decorate mugs, notebooks and placemats).

Most inspiring are the lesser-known Italian and Greek landscapes, lithographs of the Fife countryside, brooding views of Harris and Scalpay, along with a north of England landscape commissioned by the Post Office for the purpose of encouraging the public to use their postal codes.

The artist's recent paintings of Venetian landmarks, avoiding cliché, are also remarkable for their economy and clarity. At times a very painterly painter, Dame Elizabeth undeniably deserves the honours conferred upon her as she combines discipline with a tremendous eye for detail.

I came away from the exhibition, delighted with the landscapes, happy with the portrayal of the Blackadder cats (never represented sentimentally), intrigued by the Japanese-inspired studies, bored by the flowers and regretful that there were so few portraits.

It would be churlish to disagree with the NGS's director-general, John Leighton, who views our octogenarian painter as a national treasure. Who should argue with him? More importantly, is she the only one? Shouldn't this country foster and recognise more?

First-rate women artists of any nationality, like the recently deceased French/American Louise Bourgeois, are rare. As "one of Scotland's greatest painters", Blackadder obviously occupies (along with Perpetua Pope perhaps) the top notch. But are there not others who deserve a show in the National Gallery of Scotland? The late Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham was one and for longevity, at least, she competed with the others.

Some years younger are Carole Gibbons, Barbara Rae and Victoria Crowe. And why limit the status of "national treasure" to painters? What about makers like the jeweller and silversmith, Dorothy Hogg or Maureen Hodge, the tapestry artist?

At some point, maybe 25 years hence, the powers-that-be will have to consider a replacement for their female artistic icon(s). I'm wondering who she (or they) might be. Caithness-born Fionna Carlisle or June Redfern, both of whom burgeoned in the 1980s and like Blackadder before them, studied at Edinburgh College of Art? In age, Alison Watt is not far behind this pair.

However, it's our children or grandchildren who will celebrate Katie Paterson as Scotland's national treasure in the 2060s (that's if the NGS decides to honour her on her 80th birthday). The 27 year old conceptual artist, not long out of the Slade and whose territory is technological and ecological, is (with the help of enlightened galleries like the Ingleby) fast-tracking her way to being one of Scotland's brightest artistic stars.

While on this subject, the NGS could reserve space and even an exhibition or two for the "might-have-been national treasures". I mean the Scottish woman artist who, due to financial pressure, demands of parenthood and even premature death, is unable to chalk up a body of work spanning six decades.

I need go no farther in my search into the untimely ends of Scottish women artists than those of Joan Eardley and Caroline McNairn (see above), the latter of whom died in poverty at the age of 55.

It seems that to become a national treasure, you not only need to have discipline and talent but also a secure teaching post and/or an enlightened funding body, inspired gallery owners and curators, loads of luck and longevity.

MARY GLADSTONE