Reseña

English-born artist who worked in Scotland and Liverpool, and whose work became one of the defining features of Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) during the 1890s. Frances Macdonald worked collectively with The Four but most collaborative work of the 1890’ was with her sister Margaret Macdonald and from 1899 with her husband the architect James Herbert MacNair. Her decorative and symbolic imagery resonated with the Zeitgeist of the period. In 1902 exhibited at the great International Exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin. Frances taught at both Liverpool and Glasgow Schools of Art.

Actividades

Justificaciones

• Her work became one of the defining features of Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) during the 1890s.
• She is one of the most influential artists of Glasgow School Of Art.
• France's work with The Four defined the Glasgow Style, an influential movement in modern European Art.

Biografía

English-born artist who worked in Scotland and Liverpool, and whose work became one of the defining features of Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) during the 1890s. Born Frances Elizabeth Macdonald, at Kidsgrove 1873 and she had three brothers, and one older sister, Margaret. By 1890 the family had moved to Glasgow and Frances still in her teens, and her sister, Margaret Macdonald, enrolled as day students at the Glasgow School of Art studying courses in design.  

Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his friend/colleague Herbert MacNair were studying as night students and were introduced to the sisters by the Headmaster Francis Newbery because he recognised that they were working in similar styles. By 1894 they were showing their work together, some of which were made collaboratively. The artists were known collectively as 'The Four' – Charles Rennie Mackintosh, his future wife Margaret Macdonald, her younger sister Frances Macdonald and her future husband James Herbert McNair - soon became a recognised group, dubbed the “Spook School” by the press, in reference to the emaciated, witch-like figures which insinuated themselves throughout their designs.  Through their work they defined the Glasgow Style, an influential movement in modern European art. 

But most collaborative work of Frances in the 1890s was with her sister, particularly  when they left the School and opened an independent studio in the city in1896. Collaboration was key to Frances Macdonald’s creativity unleashing their imaginations on chivalric tales and scenes of mysterious symbolism. Their 21 illustrations for The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems, shimmer with grace and romance. The partnership with Margaret in the 1890s produced metalwork, graphics, textiles and a series of book illustrations exhibiting in London, Liverpool and Venice, were published in the Studio, Dekorative Kunst, the Yellow Book and elsewhere and won numerous awards for their art, both individually and in collaboration. The designs are characterised by distinctive stylisations of human and plant forms, creating linear, often symmetrical patterns from interlocking limbs, swirling hair and tendrils. Such stylisations show an awareness of contemporaries Jan Toorop, Aubrey Beardsley and Carlos Schwabe. Its most public face was the poster designs from the mid 1890s, notably for the Glasgow-based Drooko umbrella manufacturer and the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. They both had a distinctive style influenced by mysticism, symbolism and Celtic imagery. The Macdonald sisters continued to work successfully together until 1899 when Frances and MacNair married and she joined him in Liverpool where McNair was by then teaching at the School of Architecture and Applied Art.  Frances would no longer collaborate with Margaret, but instead with McNair.  
 
The couple painted watercolours and designed interiors and their only child, Sylvan, was born in 1900.  

In the early 1900s, The McNairs enjoyed a few years of international success, exhibiting at the Venice Biennale, in the Scottish Room at the eighth exhibition of the Vienna Secession in 1900 with the Mackintoshes, Liverpool, London, Dresden and in a major international show in Turin, they presented a 'Writing Room' at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art, Turin in 1902, for which she designed and made textile and metalwork panels, and jewellery. In 1903 Macdonald made four appliqué panels for the music room in Fritz Waerndorfer's Vienna townhouse.

The interiors of their home in Liverpool were furnished and decorated to their design and published under their joint names in a special 1901 edition of the Studio devoted to modern domestic architecture and design. These were arguably the most avant-garde domestic interiors of that date in Liverpool. Macdonald taught embroidery at the School of Architecture and Applied Art, University College, until 1909; arts and crafts teaching was then housed in makeshift studios known as the Art Sheds. Macdonald continued to concentrate on watercolour painting,  jewellery, enamelwork and embroidered panels but the uncomfortable truth is ever present: Herbert McNair was holding Frances Macdonald back. His works are clearly the weaker of the two; 

They moved back to Glasgow around 1909 where Frances taught at the Art School, but McNair could not find work. He turned to drink, and in 1914 France’s mother died, and her sister left Glasgow. 
 
One final series of symbolist watercolours by Frances places the fey damsels of her early work in dark, disturbing scenes of dilemma and despair  addressing themes related to marriage and motherhood. They suggest entrapment, and a loss of innocence and freedom. In them, she seems to turn over the old choices she made, leaving her sister, trusting her future to McNair, and becoming a mother. 
 
In 1921, Frances Macdonald McNair died at the age of 48; many believe she committed suicide but it’s said, McNair, destroyed most of her work in his distress.  
 
Macdonald became one of the defining features of Modern Style. and much of her work that remains is held by the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, and in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. 

Obras

Inglés

• Bows

Bibliografía

Larner, Gerald and Celia (1980). The Glasgow Style. Glasgow: Astragal 

Burkhauser, Jude (2001) 'Glasgow Girls': Women in Art and Design 1880–1920. Edinburgh: Canongate Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-1-84195-151-5. 

Helland, Janice  ( 1995), The Studios of Frances Macdonald and Margaret Macdonald’ Manchester: Manchester University Press. 

Enfoque Didáctico

Art, Design, Interior Design, Art School, Architecture.

Documentos