Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (June 7, 1868 – December 10, 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, and watercolourist who was a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and also the main exponent of Art Nouveau in Scotland.

Outside the UK

Although moderately popular (for a period) in his native Scotland, Mackintosh enjoyed little success outside the UK, and most of his more ambitious designs were not built. His designs of various buildings for the 1901 Glasgow International Exhibition were not constructed, as was his Haus fur eines Kunstfreundes (House for an Art Lover) in the same year. He competed in the 1903 design competition for Liverpool Cathedral, but lost the commission to Giles Gilbert Scott. Later in life, disillusioned with architecture, Mackintosh worked largely as a watercolourist, painting numerous landscapes and flower studies (often in collaboration with Margaret, with whose style Mackintosh's own gradually converged) in the Suffolk village of Walberswick (to which the pair moved in 1914).

Related Topics:
1901 - Glasgow International Exhibition - 1903 - Liverpool Cathedral - Giles Gilbert Scott - Watercolour - Suffolk - Walberswick - 1914

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Mackintosh's designs gained in popularity in the decades following his death. His House for an Art Lover was finally built in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park in 1996, and the University of Glasgow (which owns the majority of his watercolour work) rebuilt a terraced house Mackintosh had designed, and furnished it with his and Margaret's work (it is part of the University's Hunterian Museum). The Glasgow School of Art building (now renamed "The Mackintosh Building") is regularly cited by architectural critics as among the very finest buildings in the UK. The Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society tries to encourage a greater awareness of the work of Mackintosh as an important architect, artist and designer.

Related Topics:
1996 - University of Glasgow - Hunterian Museum

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