Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh

Morrison McChlery, Glasgow, Scotland, 1943

Dr. Thomas Howarth, Toronto, Canada

Christie's London, The Dr. Thomas Howarth Collection: Important Works by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret and Frances Macdonald and Herbert MacNair, February 17, 1994, lot 90

Wolf Family Collection No. 1093 (acquired from the above)

Prima Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna, Turin, Italy, 1902

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, Memorial Exhibition, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, Scotland, 1933, no. 174

Um 1900: Art Nouveau & Jugendstil, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich, Switzerland, 1952

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Architect, Watercolourist, Design, The Arts Council and Saltire Society, Manchester, England, 1954, no. B24

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Works from the Collection of Professor Thomas Howarth, School of Architecture, University of Toronto, 1967, cat. no. 53

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) Memorial Exhibition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, November 18-December 31, 1978, cat. no. 166

Thomas Howarth, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Movement, London, 1977, pl. 59 (for a period photograph of a related gesso panel exhibited at the Vienna Secession Exhibition, 1900)

Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings & Interior Designs, London, 1986, pp. 87 (for a period photograph of a related gesso panel in the Ingram Street Tea Rooms, 1900) and 95 (for period photographs of a related gesso panel exhibited at the Vienna Secession Exhibition, 1900)

Wendy Kaplan, ed., Charles Rennie Mackintosh, exh. cat., Glasgow Museums, 1996, p. 100 (for the above mentioned period photograph)

Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh first met her husband and fellow artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1890s. Exhibiting together with her sister Frances and another friend Herbert MacNair, they formed “The Four” and contributed to the development of the distinctive variant of Art Nouveau known as the Glasgow Style. Influenced by the Aesthetic and Arts & Crafts movements as well as Japanese art, their style was characterized by the elongation and attenuation of sinuous lines and the stylization of natural motifs and human figures, and could be seen across media including furniture, textiles, jewelry and works on paper.

The present lot is a masterful drawing of one of Mackintosh’s most iconic works, The May Queen panel for Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tea Rooms in Glasgow. Miss Catherine Cranston commissioned Mackintosh and her husband to design the interiors of her tearoom, reinventing every detail from the walls to the furnishings to the metal balustrades to make the space a Gesamtkunstwerk. The fifteen-foot-long gesso panel was situated in the Ladies’ Luncheon Room directly opposite another panel by Charles titled The Wassail; apart from these works the room was painted entirely white, allowing their colors to pop. The newly wedded couple certainly believed these panels to be significant representations of their oeuvres, as prior to their installation in the dining room both were exhibited at the eighth Vienna Secession exhibition where the Scottish style was a critical success.

The subject of The May Queen is derived from the May Day holiday, a celebration of springtime across Europe. The eponymous May Queen stands in the center of the composition with four female figures positioned symmetrically around her. Each of them wears a billowing gown, their bodies articulated with elegantly curving lines and elongated hair. The pair of women on each side hold flower garlands across the central figure, and they are all further enveloped with stylized flower blossoms and sinuous vines that endow the piece with a natural yet otherworldly sensibility. The drawing of The May Queen is not entirely identical to the gesso panel. It is possible that rather than serving as a preparatory drawing, the drawing was produced after the completion of the panel for individual display. While the panel remained in situ in the tearoom, the drawing was exhibited two years later at the Prima Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna in Turin, further contributing to the international recognition of Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style.