Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh
Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh was an English-born artist who worked in Scotland, and whose design work became one of the defining features of the Glasgow Style during the 1890s and 1900s. Macdonald, along with her sister Frances, studied at the Glasgow School of Art, where she met and later married Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who is frequently claimed to be Scotland's most famous architect. They worked together for years, but the artist was somewhat marginalized in comparison to her husband (which was very typical for the times). Yet she was celebrated in her time by many of her peers, including her husband who once wrote in a letter to her, "Remember, you are half if not three-quarters in all my architectural work ..." and reportedly "Margaret has genius, I have only talent."
A version of the work we present today was produced for The Rose Boudoir exhibition setting shown in Turin jointly by Margaret and Charles. Margaret made a second version of the panel that is now displayed within the reconstructed interior of their home, The Mackintosh House, in Glasgow (which can be visited).
Margaret Macdonald became highly skilled in the gesso techniques used to produce The White Rose and the Red Rose. She used a distinctive piping technique, along with paint, inset glass beads and pieces of shell. This work is one of her best gesso pieces and whilst its meaning and symbolism are subjects of speculation, the depiction of briar roses and the gaze from a central figure of great beauty evoke sensual love in a powerful way.
P.S. Here they are! Meet here Art Nouveau’s female artists, and among them Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh. <3