Biography - Charles Rennie Mackintosh

The Life and Work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh

By Stuart Robertson - Director, CRM Society

The Formative Years

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was born in 1868 in the Townhead area of Glasgow.

He trained as an architect with John Hutchison and studied art and design at evening classes at Glasgow School of Art. After completing his apprenticeship he moved to Honeyman and Keppie in 1889.

At the Art School Mackintosh with his friend and colleague Herbert McNair developed an artistic relationship with sisters Margaret and Frances Macdonald. They became known as the 'Glasgow Four' and collaborated on designs for furniture, metalwork, posters and illustrations that they exhibited in Glasgow, London, Vienna and Turin.

The 'Four' searched for new symbolic and elegant forms, leaning towards the strong lines of Art Nouveau. In Europe, the originality of Mackintosh's style was quickly appreciated and led to friendships with designers such as Josef Hoffmann and the commission to design the Warndorfer Music Salon.

In 1902, the Mackintosh Room at the Turin International Exhibition was enthusiastically received and he went on to exhibit in Moscow and Berlin helping to establish Mackintosh's reputation as a leader of the modern movement.

He disregarded the architecture of Greece and Rome as unsympathetic to the needs of Scotland and believed that a revival of the Scottish Baronial style, adapted to modern society, would meet contemporary requirements.

In 1895, having just completed his apprenticeship, he designed Martyrs' Public School and two years later worked on Queen's Cross Church (1897-1899).

The only church designed by Mackintosh to be realised, the building is now the international headquarters of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society.

The Peak of His Powers

The Glasgow School of Art is regarded as Mackintosh's architectural masterpiece where he gives full expression to his architectural ideals. The school was built in two phases - the East Wing (1897-1899) and the West Wing (1907-1909).

In 1900, Charles Rennie Mackintosh married Margaret Macdonald and by 1901 Mackintosh had become a partner of Honeyman and Keppie. That same year Charles and Margaret entered a competition in a German design magazine to design a 'House for an Art Lover'.

Whilst their entry was disqualified from the competition on the grounds of late submission, the designs were awarded a special prize for "their pronounced personal quality, their novel and austere form and the uniform configuration of interior and exterior."

For almost one hundred years the portfolio of designs for the House remained just that until, in 1988, a Glasgow civil engineer, Graham Roxburgh, had the idea of constructing the Art Lover’s House within the city’s Bellahouston Park. This was completed in 1996.

In 1902 Mackintosh received another significant commission when he was asked to design The Hill House in Helensburgh for Glasgow publisher Walter Blackie.

Mackintosh designed not only the house and garden, which was completed in 1904, but also much of the furniture and all the interior fittings and decorative schemes. Margaret contributed fabric designs and a unique gesso overmantel.

Today The Hill House is in the care of the National Trust for Scotland, and a visit is a must for anyone who wishes to see Mackintosh's domestic masterpiece.

Kate Cranston, a local Glasgow businesswoman, came up with the idea for a series of 'art tearooms' and approached Mackintosh to assist the architect and designer George Walton on her new premises in Buchanan Street. The success of the tearoom forged a relationship between Cranston and Mackintosh, which was to last twenty years.

Between 1897 and 1917 he designed or restyled rooms in all four of her Glasgow tearoom establishments. Today tea and light meals are still served in The Willow Tea Rooms in Sauchiehall Street.

Scotland Street School (1904 - 1907) was one of Mackintosh's last commissions in Glasgow. The mature architect is in evidence here with the unexpected decoration and the extraordinary daring precision of masonry and glass as they fly up towards their conical slate hats.

The principal interiors of 6 Florentine Terrace, home of the Mackintoshes from 1906 to 1914, have been meticulously reconstructed within the Hunterian Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow.

A New Direction

By 1913, the mounting tension between the partners resulted in the resignation of Mackintosh and their relocation to Walberswick, Suffolk. It was here that he produced some of his finest pencil and watercolour paintings.

In 1915 they moved to Chelsea and Mackintosh supplemented his dwindling income by designing textile patterns.

Between 1915 and 1923 he produced over 120 different designs in this new medium, ranging from patterns based on stylised flowers and natural forms to more abstract motifs that look forward to Art Deco.

Within this economic climate Mackintosh’s fortunes improved in 1916 when he was commissioned to redesign the home of engineer W.J.Basset-Lowke, at 78 Derngate, Northampton.

Mackintosh’s bold, geometric designs for the interiors and the very modern rear elevation were a confident expression of the architect working at the height of his powers and experimenting with new decorative forms.

In 1923, with very little prospect of architectural work and becoming increasingly hard-pressed financially, Charles and Margaret set off for Port Vendres in the South of France. Much like Suffolk, the simple natured and low cost lifestyle suited them perfectly and proved to be conducive to the creation of watercolour paintings.

However, as time passed, Mackintosh's health began to deteriorate, prompting the return to London, where the illness worsened and Charles Rennie Mackintosh died on the 10 December 1928, aged sixty.

Further information on tours and events can be obtained from the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society at e-mail: info@crmsociety.com or web: www.crmsociety.com