Hotels near the Edinburgh Art Festival

Part of Edinburgh's festival mix since 2004, the Edinburgh Art Festival now brings cutting-edge visual art to the city every summer. Despite its young age its reach is great, with new commissions and exhibitions across the city's galleries.

In 2011 the Edinburgh Art Festival featured Karen Forbes' Solar Pavilion in St Andrew's Square Gardens and the unveiling of the permanent Fruitmarket Gallery commission: Martin Creed's Work No.1059 on the Scotsman Steps.

Sculptors on show included Anish Kapoor's first solo Scottish exhibition, David Mach, Tony Cragg and Thomas Housago, while painters included Robert Rauschenberg, Ingrid Calame, Anton Hemming and, from Britain, Elizabeth Blackadder, John Byrne, Tamsyn Challenger, Chris Drury and Stephen Sutcliffe.

Major gallery retrospectives included The Northern Renaissance: Dürer to Holbein at the Queen's Gallery, 500 years of Scottish Portraiture at the Queen's Gallery, The Queen: Art and Image at the Scottish National Gallery and an exhibition of glass at the newly re-opened National Museum of Scotland.

Expect a similarly eclectic mix in 2012.