Glasgow's Favourite Artist Celebrated

A new exhibition opens at Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum commemorating 150 years since the birth of Glaswegian artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The collection includes exhibits which haven’t been seen in Scotland for more than 30 years.

Alison Brown, Exhibition Curator said: “We have a number of panel pieces on display, which won’t have been seen before, apart from people who actually saw them in the tea rooms.”

A section of wall panel excavated from Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms. The lathe and plaster wall was salvaged prior to the building’s renovation in 1971 and are an early example of the artist’s iconic rose motif.

The exhibition is just part of a year-long celebration of the works of Mackintosh, across Glasgow and beyond, 'as an architect, designer, artist.'

Councillor David McDonald, Chair of Glasgow Life said: “Sharing Mackintosh and sharing Glasgow, not only with the rest of Scotland but also with the rest of the world during this year is a fantastic opportunity for the city and for the world to see Mackintosh.”

“We’ve got a year’s celebration of Mackintosh, his legacy and his role in the Glasgow Style. There will be events at Kelvingrove, but also a chance for people to see other Mackintosh masterpieces Scotland Street School and the Lighthouse. There will be events taking place beyond Glasgow in Helensburgh, and we are donating some of our collection to the V&A in Dundee when it opens later this year.”

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Making the Glasgow Style’ presents his work in context with other contemporary artists, including his wife Margaret Macdonald, Margaret’s sister Frances Macdonald and her partner James Herbert McNair. The group, known as ‘the Glasgow Four’ were influential on Glasgow’s Art Nouveau art-scene as part of the ‘Glasgow School.’

Mackintosh was born in Glasgow in 1868 and produced iconic works of art & design, as well as architecture over his 60 year lifetime.

The show charts his ‘stylistic evolution’ across a diverse range of 250 pieces from Glasgow’s civic collection, as well as artwork loaned from The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow School of Art, the V&A and private lenders.

Curator Alison Brown hopes the exhibition will give Glaswegians a new love for Mackintosh “in all his complexity and all his beauty,” and show-case the diversity of Mackintosh’s work:

“I hope that what people see here will make them see the city in a new light."