Glasgow School

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Glasgow School - Charles Rennie Macintosh and the Immortals 1894

The Glasgow School was a significant group of modern artists and designers from Glasgow , Scotland . The group of artists , formed in the 1870s at the Glasgow School of Art , achieved significant importance and influence from 1890 to around 1910. Important subgroups were The Four , also known as the Spook School , the Glasgow Girls and the Glasgow Boys . During this time, Glasgow experienced an economic boom, with which a significant Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movement began, especially in the fields of architecture , interior design and painting .

The Four

Charles Rennie Mackintosh around 1900

The most prominent founders of the Glasgow School included four artists: the well-known architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh , his wife, the painter and glass artist Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh , her sister Frances MacDonald McNair and her husband James Herbert McNair . Together they shaped the geometric Glasgow Style in the Arts and Crafts Movement , a syncretistic mixture of Celtic and Japanese art that caused a sensation in the art scene on the continent. The MacDonald sisters, born and raised in England, came to Glasgow with their parents in 1890, where they studied at the Glasgow School of Art in the following years . The two men, on the other hand, had grown up in Glasgow and were attending evening classes at this art school at the time. Independently of each other, the two couples attempted similar styles of painting and decoration.

When the director of the art school noticed the strong affinity in content, technique and form of the two couples, he introduced them to each other. The four soon formed a creative alliance and presented their avant-garde new art at the students' art exhibition, where they received great acclaim. From this point on they were known as The Four (later also Spook School ) and gained great influence on Art Nouveau. A first exhibition took place in 1892, two years later the group was successful in the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society in London. In 1900 Margaret MacDonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh took part in the exhibition of the Vienna Secession , which made them internationally known. Through their work they had a lasting influence on the work of Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann .

The Glasgow Girls

Glasgow Girls 1893

The Glasgow Girls were a group of designers and artists who had all attended the Glasgow School of Art and were now working as artists, making a significant contribution to the development of art and design across Europe and the United States. The most important representatives among them were of course Frances MacDonald McNair and Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh , but Jessie Marion King also influenced the development of the Glasgow Style . There were also female painters like Bessie MacNicol and Norah Neilson Gray , whose style was closer to late impressionism . Other well-known artists were Agnes Raeburn , Janet Aitken , Katherine Cameron and Jessie Keppie .

The Glasgow Boys

In the 1880s and 1890s, a collective of artists caused a stir that quickly became known as the Glasgow Boys. William York MacGregor is considered to be the founder and mentor of the group . These artists were significantly influenced by the realism of the French School of Barbizon and thereby made Impressionism and Post-Impressionism known in Scotland. The subject of her genre painting was , in addition to motifs from the greater Glasgow area, primarily rural scenes from Kirkcudbright , Cockburnspath and other areas of Scotland. The paintings of the Glasgow Boys were exhibited by the Grosvenor Gallery in London and across Europe and received great recognition, so that the revolutionary realism of the Glasgow Boys established itself in Scottish art. Her work can now be seen in the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, as well as the Burrell Collection and Broughton House in Kirkcudbright. Important representatives of this group were:

Remarks

  1. ^ Charlotte and Peter Fiell: Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1868–1928 . Cologne 2004, p. 434.

literature

Web links

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