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Heart of the Rose

Designed for the 'Rose Boudoir', International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art, Turin, 1902. This item was assessed for conversation in 2010 as part of the Mackintosh Conservation and Access project (2006-2010), and then again in 2018 following the fire in the Mackintosh Building in June 2018.

A Rose Boudoir included two gesso panels - composite works of plaster with pigment, set with glass beads - made exclusively by Macdonald. On the manifest for the exhibition, Mackintosh indicated that ‘duplicates only’ were available for sale. Two other versions, both in Glasgow, had the same design but with different palette and surface detail: The White Rose and the Red Rose hung above the mantle in the Mackintoshes’ own home, and can now be seen in the Mackintosh House at the Hunterian Art Gallery; and The Heart of the Rose belonged to Wylie Hill, a relative of Jessie Newbery, and was later given to the Glasgow School of Art. Previously it was assumed that these versions were created from a cartoon or template, each hand made, but it was difficult to tell which set came first, or even if they were made simultaneously. But recent analysis by Graciela Ainsworth Conservation Studio in Edinburgh has shown that the GSA version is not a gesso panel as we have come to understand Macdonald’s technique, but rather a traditional plaster cast that has been painted. This may seem like a minor technical point, but when considered alongside Mackintosh’s note that duplicates could be ordered, it reminds us that he carefully curated this space to show both that he and Macdonald could be commissioned to do entire rooms but were also very happy to have individual pieces replicated and sold on their own merit (information supplied by Dr Robyne Erica Calvert, Cultural Historian, Mar 2022).

Mackintosh, Margaret Macdonald

A Pond

A Pond

Bound in the November 1894 edition of 'The Magazine'. "It must have been something like this watercolour.... that evoked the 'critics from foreign parts' (as reported by Gleeson White in The Studio, pp88-9) to deduce 'the personality of the Misses MacDonald from their works' and see them as 'middle-ages sisters, flat footed, with projecting teeth and long past matrimony... gaunt, unlovely females'. Gleeson White who visited Glasgow to see the Mackintosh group was pleasantly surprised to meet two laughing comely girls scarce out of their teens." (MacLaren Young).

MacNair, Frances Macdonald

Leaf of Gold

Leaf of Gold

In 1896 McNair held his first one-man show, an exhibition of pastels at the Gutekunst Gallery, London. Twenty-one works, including this, were displayed in distinctive dark-stained wood frames. McNair had clearly drawn inspiration from Whistler’s exhibition installations, even down to the typesetting of the catalogue. The entry for this work explained, ‘The Fairy is guarding the Leaf of Love from the Witch of Evil who has robbed the Tree of Life of all its other leaves.’

MacNair, James Herbert

Fairies

Fairies

Mackintosh's style here is the closest he came to that of Margaret and Frances Macdonald, but his figures are always more substantial and the subject matter less whimsical than theirs.

Mackintosh, Charles Rennie

White Roses

The wavy pattern in the background is very similar to some of the most abstract designs for textiles for which Mackintosh was producing at this time.' (Roger Billcliffe).

Mackintosh, Charles Rennie

The Village, Worth Matravers

The Village, Worth Matravers

In July Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald spent a holiday in Dorset re-visiting many of the place he had visited in 1895. 'In 'The Village' and 'The Downs' Mackintosh makes his first conscious moves towards his mature style of the Port Vendres period. He is obviously concerned with the pattern of the landscape, picking out features like the stepped hillside, the stone walls, paths and roofs of village houses. These ordinary motifs are given an eerie emphasis by being painted in an equally detailed manner whether they are in the foreground of the the distance... it was probably at this time... that he decided to concentrate more and more on painting. By 1923 he had decided to forsake architecture and design and devote the rest of his life to producing watercolours.' (Roger Billcliffe).

Mackintosh, Charles Rennie

The Downs, Worth Matravers

The Downs, Worth Matravers

'As in 'The Village' there are no figures in this view of the Dorset countryside. This absolute lack of human activity gives Mackintosh's pictures an air of eerie, even surreal, desertion. They are formal landscapes... the most dominant feature in this work is the tall telegraph pole, a formal and unnatural element in this gentle Dorset landscape.' (Roger Billcliffe).

Mackintosh, Charles Rennie

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