UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: 18-May-2010 I, Kristie Powell , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Master of Arts in Art History It is entitled: "The Artist Couple:" Collectivism in Margaret Macdonald’s and Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Modern Interior Designs of 1900-1906 Student Signature: Kristie Powell This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: Kimberly Paice, PhD Kimberly Paice, PhD 6/18/2010 724 “The Artist Couple:” Collectivism in Margaret Macdonald’s and Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Modern Interior Designs of 1900‐1906 A thesis submitted to The Art History Faculty Of the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning University of Cincinnati In candidacy for the degree of Masters of Arts in Art History Kristie Powell May 2010 Thesis Chair: Dr. Kimberly Paice Abstract Margaret Macdonald (1864‐1933) was a Scottish artist and designer whose marriage to the internationally renowned architect and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868‐1928), has partly obscured the importance of her contributions to art and design. Her collective approach was, in fact, part of what Mackintosh called her "genius," while he considered his own contributions to their projects more akin to "talent or ability." This study is part of the recent scholarship that brings attention to Macdonald’s contributions and crucial roles in collective design work of the modern era. Introducing the study, I evaluate the role of collectivism as it informs Macdonald’s and Mackintosh’s tea‐room designs. Next, I examine the influence of the Arts and Crafts style on the design of the couple’s Mains Street flat home. The modern revival of practices used by medieval guilds includes Macdonald’s use of the medium gesso, as I discuss in the second chapter of the study. In concluding, I discuss the Gesamtkunswerk, the total work of art, in relation to the Music Room that the Scottish couple created for Franz Waerndorfer. With the current study’s focus on Macdonald’s and Mackintosh’s interior designs, I hope to augment understandings of collectivism in order to acknowledge unsung contributions of many modern women and other producers; the hopes that such thinking may continue to inform art making and design today. Acknowledgements This study could not have been possible without the assistance and encouragement of many people. I would first like to thank the person who has given me the most advice and support throughout this project, my advisor Dr. Kim Paice. Whether she was helping me find sources for further research or sorting out difficult concepts, Kim was an inspiration. She encouraged my work from its inception, and for that, I am thankful. Sincerest thanks to my committee members Kristi Nelson and Cindy Damschroder. Their assistance on this project was crucial, and I appreciate their insight and advice. Also, I would like to thank my peers in the University of Cincinnati’s MA art history program. I am grateful for their copyediting, as well as their constant support and humor throughout the past two years. I would also like to express thanks to the Graduate School Association at the University of Cincinnati. Through the GSA, I was awarded a travel grant that allowed me to visit Glasgow. Without their funds, I would not have been able to use several archives and personally see some of Macdonald’s and Mackintosh’s surviving works. The archivists and librarians of the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Galleries, the Glasgow School of Art, and the Hunterian Art Gallery were not only helpful, but accommodating. As always, I would like to thank my parents, who are invariably and hugely supportive, and Jackson Silvanik, who is my sternest and most amusing critic and indispensable companion. Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2 Chapter 1: Blurring Gender: Collectivism in the Cranston Tea‐Rooms…………………………………………………………….10 Chapter 2: ‘Ecstatic Communion from the Heights of Loving Mateship’: The Drawing Room at the Mackintoshes’ Mains Street Flat, 1900…………………………24 Chapter 3: The Waerndorfer Music Room: An Embodiment of the Gesamtkunstwerk in Modern Design…………………………………36 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………....48 List of Illustrations……………………………………………………………………………………………..51 Bibliography and Works Consulted……………………………………………………………………..53 1 Introduction I had talent, but Margaret had genius.1 Charles Rennie Mackintosh You must remember in all of my architectural efforts, you have been half if not three‐quarters of them.2 Charles Rennie Mackintosh Margaret Macdonald (1864‐1933), the Scottish painter and designer, was the most successful female artist in Scotland at the turn of the twentieth century (figure 1). By 1900, her work had exhibited in London, Liége and Vienna, and was published in The Yellow Book, The Studio, Dekorative Kunst und Dekoration and Ver Sacrum. Despite her achievements, Macdonald’s career has been overshadowed by the better‐known work of her husband Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868‐1928), the internationally celebrated architect and designer (figure 2).3 Endlessly compared with Mackintosh’s legacy, Macdonald’s work is often ignored, attributed to Mackintosh or harshly criticized as “decadent.” Art historian Thomas Howarth in his well‐known study Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Movement (1952) commented that Macdonald limited Mackintosh’s vision by encouraging him “to dissipate his energies on work of comparative importance.” Here, Howarth is referring to Macdonald’s and Mackintosh’s collective interior designs. In the early twentieth century, design was viewed as a lesser art form. Macdonald’s gesso panels, metalwork and embroidered tapestries functioned as decorative addendums 1 Mackintosh’s comment was reported by Desmond Chapman‐Huston in The Lamp of Memory (London: Skeffington & Sons, 1949), 147. 2 Letter from C. R. Mackintosh to M. Macdonald, 16 May 1927, Collection of Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow. 3 The artist signed her work “Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh,” but to avoid confusion with Charles Rennie Mackintosh, I refer to her throughout the study by her original surname, “Macdonald.” 2 to Mackintosh’s architecture. Thus, in keeping with traditional hierarchies, architecture retained its lofty position amongst the arts while design assumes a subordinate role. The failure to address Macdonald’s work in its own right is in part due to her tendency to engage in collaborative endeavors both with her sister and her husband. This study examines the role of collaboration in Macdonald’s practice and draws attention to her practice in its own right. Mackintosh, Macdonald, her sister Frances Macdonald (1873‐1921) and Frances’s husband James Herbert MacNair (1868‐1955) were the Glasgow Four, an informal, creative alliance that shared a distinctive method of stylized imagery of nature, the female figure and Romantic literature. Their designs were influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau, Symbolism, the Pre‐Raphaelites and Celtic folklore. The Four, along with a few other friends from the Glasgow School of Art, spent their weekends at rented bungalows in the Scottish village Dunure. It is uncertain what occurred during these weekend getaways, but the Four acquired the reputation as “bohemians.”4 The Four came to international acclaim after their participation in Vienna’s Eighth Secession Exhibition in 1900 and the first International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art at Turin in 1902. On the Continent, the Four’s designs were especially praised for their creation of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. These expositions established Glasgow as one of the major centers of design in early twentieth‐century Europe. 4 Thomas Howarth, “Introduction: Some Thoughts on Charles Rennie Mackintosh, ‘Girls’—and Glasgow,” Jude Burkhauser, ed., Glasgow Girls: Women in Art and Design 1880­1920 (Edinburgh: Canongate Press, National Museums of Scotland Publishing), 60. 3 The Glasgow Style, also known as Scotto‐Continental Art Nouveau, indicates work created in Glasgow, particularly in alliance with the Glasgow School of Art, from roughly 1890 to 1920. The style’s most distinguishing characteristics are stylized, organic motifs such as the Glasgow Rose, a linear, simplified version of the flower that is prevalent throughout the work of the Four. The paintings, drawings and designs of the Four were not well received in Scotland. Critics took offense to the Four’s attenuated, conventionalized human figures, giving the artists the derisive title of “the Spook School.” By the 1890s, the group had moved away from “the Spook School” to concentrate on larger projects in design. One of the Glasgow Style’s aims was to minimize the gap between fine and industrial art. The style had an early conceptual base with socialist educational aims and a collective studio approach. Similar to these endeavors, Macdonald’s work blurs the boundaries between design and architecture, the individual artist and the collective, and art and life. More than two‐thirds of Macdonald’s work is collaborative; therefore, collectivism is a definitive characteristic of Macdonald’s artistic vision. At the turn of the twentieth century, collaboration was essential for any aspiring female artist. Macdonald’s career is marked by two distinct partnerships, first, with her sister Frances, and later with Mackintosh. Until Macdonald’s and Mackintosh’s marriage in 1900, Macdonald shared a studio with Frances. The sisters created poster designs, metalwork and embroidery—“feminine” art. After 1900,