There is a big exhibition of Rennie Macintosh's
work at the Huntarian Glasgow. I am a great admirer of his work and it was
devastating about the Glasgow Art school fire this year.
His wife Margaret MacDonald, I probably admire her
work even more - and her exhibition is away in Helensburgh. I've been writing
on women artists recently - and they are usually treated as second class or
ignored and hidden away. I notice too how often female artists are referred to
as - collaborating with their partners, or being painted by them - when the
reality is that these women artists were strong independent artists in their
own right.
Margaret influenced the wonderful Austrian artist
Klimt and others.
Macintosh credited her with being an important part
of his figurative and symbolic interior designs. "Remember, you are half
if not four-quarters of all my architectural...Margaret has genius, I have only
talent."
Margaret MacDonald, (1864 Scotland) She was
celebrated for her panels in Glasgow's famous Willow Tearooms - The May Queen,
and Oh ye, all ye that walk in Willowood. Along with her husband Rennie
Macintosh and Herbert MacNair, she was one of the most influential members of
the collective known as the Glasgow Four. She exhibited with Mackintosh at the
1900 Vienna Secession, where she was an influence on the Secessionists Gustav
Klimt and Josef Hoffmann.
