Artist

Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1868, Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an architect, decorator and painter.

Whilst apprenticed to the architect John Hutchinson, he began attending evening classes in architecture at Glasgow School of Art, where he won many prizes and a travelling scholarship to Italy, France and Belgium. On his return to Glasgow, he met the two sisters Frances and Margaret MacDonald, and together with Herbert MacNair, they formed the Glasgow Four group. The group created a specifically Scottish variant of European Art Nouveau.

In 1904 he became a partner in the firm of Honeyman and Keppie, and that same year saw the opening of the Willow Tea Rooms, Glasgow, for which he had designed furnishings and fittings. One of Mackintosh's most famous buildings is the Glasgow School of Art.

Aside from his enormous and very distinctive influence as an architect and designer, he also painted in water-colour, with great precision and sensitivity, in Suffolk and the South of France.

He died in 1928.

This extremely versatile Scottish artist played a prominent role in the Arts and Crafts movement in Great Britain and his name became synonymous with the independent Northern European version of Art Nouveau.

Mackintosh can be interpreted as a decorative orientated architect who drew his inspiration from symbolism and the art of fine Japanese drawing. During his relatively short working life he developed his very own linear-decorative style with a recognisable use of colours. It was these elements in particular that made his interior designs become world famous and unforgettable. Like no one else, he combined a strict architectural theory of shapes with a playful lyricism which goes back to the Pre-Raphaelites and Celtic ornamentation.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh is established in the Scottish iconography as an architect of originality, a designer of genius and a painter of exceptional quality.

He is, however, an enigma as a man. This Victorian Glaswegian made his way through the art scene at the end of the nineteenth century to become a famous figure in his own time and a legend today. A prophet is not without honour save in his own country, and this was certainly true of Mackintosh who managed to annoy, offend and enrage the architectural establishment of his day to an extent that he turned his back on his own city and went willingly into exile to England, and finally to France.

In all of this, he was unfailingly supported by a fellow-artist and co-worker, Margaret Macdonald. They were often a test to each other, but each protected the others vulnerability. Their love story through challenging times is one of the great sagas of art history.

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sculptures

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH
The Wassail

Sculpture

Superb. Figure derived from the panels to decorate the famous Ingram Street Tea Rooms in Glasgow in 1900

• Medium: Collectible quality resin with hand-painted color details, matte and glossy finish
• Dimensions: 18.5 cm
• Condition: New in box
• Date of Creation: 1990-Now
• Origin: Europe
• Manufactured by: Parastone Mouseion