The Glasgow School was a circle of influential artists and designers that began to coalesce in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

in the 1870s, and flourished from the 1890s to around 1910. Representative groups included The Four (also known as the Spook School), the Glasgow Girls and the Glasgow Boys. Part of the international Art Nouveau movement, they were responsible for creating the distinctive Glasgow Style (see Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style)). Glasgow experienced an economic boom at the end of the 19th century, resulting in an increase in distinctive contributions to the Art Nouveau movement, particularly in the fields of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordi ...

and

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

The Four (Spook School)

Among the most prominent definers of the Glasgow School collective were The Four. They were the painter and glass artist Margaret MacDonald, acclaimed

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Charles Rennie Mackintosh (7 June 1868 – 10 December 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdo ...

(MacDonald's husband), MacDonald's sister

Frances Frances is a French and English given name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'free one.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from the F ...

and Herbert MacNair. Together, The Four defined the Glasgow Style's fusion of influences including the Celtic Revival, the Arts and Crafts Movement, and Japonisme, which found favour throughout the modern art world of continental

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. The Four, otherwise known as the Spook School, ultimately made a significant impact on the definition of Art Nouveau. The name, Spook School, or Spooky or Ghoul School, was originally a "derisive epithet" given to their work which "distorted and conventionalized human... form."

The Glasgow Girls

The Glasgow Girls is the name now used for a group of female designers and

artists An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the ...

including Margaret and

Frances MacDonald Frances Macdonald MacNair (24 August 1873 – 12 December 1921) was a Scottish artist whose design work was a prominent feature of the Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) during the 1890s. Biography The sister of artist-designer M ...

, both of whom were members of The Four,

Jessie M. King Jessie Marion King (20 March 1875 – 3 August 1949) was a Scottish illustrator known for her illustrated children's books. She also designed bookplates, jewellery and fabric, and painted pottery. King was one of the artists known as the Glas ...

Annie French Annie French (6 February 1872 – 27 January 1965) was a Scottish painter, engraver, illustrator, and designer associated with the Glasgow School. Biography French was a student of Jean Delville and Fra Newbery at the Glasgow School of Art fro ...

, Helen Paxton Brown, Jessie Wylie Newbery, Ann Macbeth, Bessie MacNicol,

Norah Neilson Gray Norah Neilson Gray (16 June 1882 – 27 May 1931) was a Scottish artist of the Glasgow School. She first exhibited at the Royal Academy while still a student and then showed works regularly at the Paris Salon and with the Royal Academy of Scotl ...

,Glasgow Girls On Display
Mary Selwood, accessed July 2010 Stansmore Dean,

Dorothy Carleton Smyth Dorothy Carleton Smyth (1880 – 16 February 1933) was a Scottish artist, a compatriot of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, active in theatrical and costuming design, and one of the leading lights at the Glasgow School of Art during the post WWI period. ...

, Eleanor Allen Moore, De Courcy Lewthwaite Dewar, the silversmith Agnes Banks Harvey and Christian Jane Fergusson. May Wilson and Eliza Bell, among others, continued the tradition of ceramic artistry into the 1940s and 1950s by hand painting various items with floral patterns. Women were able to flourish in Glasgow during a "period of enlightenment" that took place between 1885 and 1920, where women were actively pursuing art careers and the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...

had a significant period of "international visibility". This is sometimes attributed to the "influential" and "progressive" head of the art school, Fra Newbery, who established an environment in which women could flourish, both as students and as teachers. Women benefited from the new Glasgow Society of Lady Artists (founded 1882) which offered a place for women artists to meet and also had exhibition space. In addition, many art school students and staff were involved in

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

. "Students took turns between classes stitching up banners" for the movement. The name "Glasgow Girls" emerged much later. In the 1960s there was an attempt to give due attention to the work of the city’s women artists to balance the plentiful discussion of the Glasgow Boys. It is thought that the then head of the

Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the ...

William Buchanan was the first to use the name in the catalogue for a 1968 Glasgow Boys exhibition. This "invention"Andrew Gibbbon Williams, 'Engendering respect', The Times (features), 18 Sep 1990 has been called an "ironic reference" to the equivalent men’s grouping. The term Glasgow Girls was emphasised by a major exhibition ''Glasgow Girls: Women in Art and Design 1880-1920'' organised by

Jude Burkhauser Jude Burkhauser (10 September 1947 – 19 September 1998) was an American artist, museum curator and researcher born into a blue-collar family in Trenton, New Jersey. Glasgow Girls Exhibition, 1990 Jude Burkhauser is best known for bringing tog ...

in 1990. File:Frances MacDonald - A Paradox 1905.jpg, ''A Paradox'' by

, 1905 File:Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh - Opera of the Winds.jpg, ''Opera of the Winds'' by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, 1903 File:Bessie MacNicol - The Goose Girl 1898.jpg, ''The Goose Girl'' by Bessie MacNicol, 1898

The Glasgow Boys

Through the 1880s and 1890s, around the same time that the Spook School was gaining prominence, a collective which came to be known as the

Glasgow Boys The Glasgow School was a circle of influential artists and designers that began to coalesce in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1870s, and flourished from the 1890s to around 1910. Representative groups included The Four (also known as the Spook School ...

was interpreting and expanding the

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

of Impressionist and post-impressionist painting. Their subject matter featured

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...

, prosaic scenes from in and around Glasgow. Their colorful depictions attempted to capture the many facets of the character of

. The Glasgow Boys consisted of several men, most of whom were trained in, or had strong ties to the city of Glasgow. These men were brought together by a passion for realism and naturalism and this showed through in the pieces they produced. Along with this passion for naturalism, they shared a marked distaste for the Edinburgh oriented Scottish art establishment, which they viewed as oppressive. Driven and motivated by these ideals they embraced change, created masterpieces, and became Scottish icons in the process. There were three distinct waves of Glasgow Boys. The leading figures of the first wave were James Paterson (1854–1932) and William York Macgregor (1855-1923), and the group used to meet at Macgregor's studio. The second wave was represented in Joseph Crawhall (1861–1913), Thomas Millie Dow (1848-1919), James Guthrie (1859–1930), George Henry (1858–1943), E. A. Hornel (1864–1933), James Whitelaw Hamilton (1860-1932) and E. A. Walton (1860–1922). The third wave of artists were

David Gauld David Gauld (7 November 1865 – 18 June 1936) was an important Scottish artist who worked in both oils and stained glass and was regarded as being one of the innovators within the Glasgow Boys group. Some of his works, such as ''St Agnes'' and ...

(1865–1936), William Kennedy (1859–1918),

John Lavery Sir John Lavery (20 March 1856 – 10 January 1941) was a Northern Irish painter best known for his portraits and wartime depictions. Life and career John Lavery was born in inner North Belfast, baptised at St Patrick's Church, Belfast an ...

(1856–1941), Harrington Mann (1864-1937), Stuart Park (1862–1933), William Wells (1872–1923), David Young Cameron (1865–1945), Alexander Ignatius Roche (1861–1923), Arthur Melville (1855–1904), Thomas Corsan Morton (1859-1928), James Nairn (1859–1904), George Pirie (1863-1946) and

John Quinton Pringle John Quinton Pringle (13 December 1864 – 25 April 1925) was a Scottish painter, influenced by Jules Bastien-Lepage and associated with the Glasgow Boys. Early life Pringle was born the son of a railway employee in Dennistoun, Glasgow. Thoug ...

(1864–1925). Their main influences were that of Japanese print, French Realism including Jules Bastien-Lepage, and

James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

, but all of their experiences around the world greatly impacted on and inspired their work, in particular in Spain, North Africa, and Japan. The group was constantly influenced by what they saw in the world around them and strove to display these images by utilizing the techniques of realism and naturalism; they had a passion to depict things as they actually are. This is one of the reasons that the group often chose to work outdoors. Working outdoors allowed them to produce paintings that were as true to nature as possible and it allowed them to paint realistic objects in their natural environment. They painted real people in real places. The production of naturalistic paintings was new to this time period, and thus their techniques were considered to be innovative. Similarly, the pieces often created a sense of movement, an accurate (or naturalistic) depiction of light and shade, and extremely realistic texture. This made them stand out in the art community. File:Joseph Crawhall - James Guthrie At His Easel 1885.jpg, ''James Guthrie At His Easel'' by Joseph Crawhall, 1885. File:Thomas Millie Dow - Spring 1886.jpg, ''Spring'' by Thomas Millie Dow, 1886 File:Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon by Sir James Guthrie.jpg, ''Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon'' by Sir James Guthrie, c. 1924 – c. 1930 File:Bluette by Edward Arthur Walton, 1891, NGS.JPG, ''Bluette'' by

Edward Arthur Walton Edward Arthur Walton (15 April 1860 in Glanderston House, Barrhead, Renfrewshire – 18 March 1922 in Edinburgh) was a Scottish painter of landscapes and portraits, associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Life Edward was one o ...

, 1891 File:Alexander Mann - Portrait of a Girl at Dusk.jpg, ''Portrait of a Girl at Dusk'' by Alexander Mann (date unknown; d. 1908) File:William York Macgregor-Cerca de Dover.jpg, ''Near Dover'' by William York Macgregor, 1921

Collections and exhibitions

A large collection of work from the Glasgow Boys is held in the

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is a museum and art gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. It reopened in 2006 after a three-year refurbishment and since then has been one of Scotland's most popular visitor attractions. The museum has 22 galleries, h ...

, where one room is dedicated to the group. The museum houses more than 60 of the Boys' pieces that were created between 1880 and 1900, arguably the time period in which their best, and most innovative, pieces were produced. More of their works can be found on display at the

Burrell Collection The Burrell Collection is a museum in Glasgow, Scotland, managed by Glasgow Museums. It houses the art collection of Sir William Burrell and Constance, Lady Burrell. The museum reopened on 29 March 2022 with free entry, having been closed for ...

, Broughton House, Paisley Museum and Art Galleries, Walker Art Gallery and the

Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery The Hunterian is a complex of museums located in and operated by the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the oldest museum in Scotland. It covers the Hunterian Museum, the Hunterian Art Gallery, the Mackintosh House, the Zoology M ...

References

Bibliography

*Billcliffe, Roger. ''The Glasgow Boys''. John Murray, London. *''The Glasgow Boys and Girls: Painting in Scotland Book of Postcards'': The National Galleries of Scotland.

External links

The Glasgow Girls & artworks by Jessie M King from the Permanent Collection of the Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries, Scotland
{{Twentieth-century Scotland Art Nouveau Post-Impressionism Scottish art Scottish artist groups and collectives Victorian era 19th century in Glasgow 20th century in Glasgow