Glasgow Girls

At the turn of the last century Glasgow was the centre for an avante garde movement of art and design innovation in Europe which we now refer to as The Glasgow Style. Many readers will be familiar with the work of the ‘Glasgow Boys’ group of painters, considered in the late nineteenth century to be revolutionary, but little has been written about the ‘Girls’ who were their contemporaries. Painters, such as Bessie MacNicol and Norah Neilson Gray, and designers, such as Jessie Newbery, Margaret and Frances Macdonald, and Jessie M. King influenced the development of the Glasgow Style and went on to achieve international recognition, causing reverberations in central Europe and the USA which contributed to the development of the modern movement in art and design. The common link which binds the women is their involvement with the Glasgow School of Art, either as students or as instructors. Under the enlightened direction of Fra Newbery, Glasgow School of Art nourished their ‘progressive ideas’ and enabled them to make significant contributions to the social, educational and aesthetic directions of their time. ‘Glasgow Girls’: Women in Art and Design 1880-1920 brings to light an astonishing number of women in art and design whose work—often internationally exhibited and critically acclaimed in contemporary journals like Deutsche Kunst, Ver Sacrum and The Studio—has now been largely forgotten. Jude Burkhauser has skilfully brought together the varied research of eighteen scholars into one volume. Autobiographical accounts of each artist are complemented by chapters on the social history of the era and decorative arts movement. Together they offer a new feminist- informed art historical perspective on the Glasgow Style. The book is handsomely illustrated by 100 colour and…