Mary Seton Fraser Tytler (married name Mary Seton Watts) (1849–1938) was a symbolist craftswoman, designer and social reformer.

Biography

Watts, née Fraser-Tytler, was born on 25 November 1849, in India. She was the daughter of Charles Edward Fraser Tytler of Balnain and Aldourie, who worked for the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

. She spent much of her youth in Scotland, where she was raised by her grandparents, and settled in England in the 1860s. Early in 1870 she studied art in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

before enrolling at the

South Kensington School of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It off ...

later the same year. During 1872 and 1873 Tytler studied sculpture at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. She initially became known as a portrait painter, and was associated with

Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Margaret Cameron (''née'' Pattle; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her Soft focus, soft-focus close-ups of famous ...

and the Freshwater community. There she met painter

George Frederic Watts George Frederic Watts (23 February 1817, in London – 1 July 1904) was a British painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical work ...

, and at the age of 36 (he was 69), became his second wife on 20 November 1886 in

Epsom Epsom is the principal town of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Saxon landowner. The ...

, Surrey. Watts was President of the Godalming and District National Union of Women's Suffrage Society (a local branch of the

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...

), and she convened at least one women's suffrage meeting in Compton, Surrey. Watts died at her home, Limnerslease, in Compton on 6 September 1938. Her remains are buried in the Watts Chapel.

Work

After her marriage, Watts largely worked in the fields of Celtic and

Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) The Modern Style is a style of architecture, art, and design that first emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1880s. It is the first Art Nouveau style worldwide, and it represents the evolution of the Arts and Crafts movement which was native ...

bas-reliefs,

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

metalwork Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...

, and textiles. She co-founded the Compton Potters' Arts Guild and the Arts and Crafts Movement, Arts & Crafts Guild in Compton, Guildford, Compton, Surrey. She designed, built, and maintained the Watts Mortuary Chapel in Compton (1895–1904); and had built and maintained the Watts Gallery (1903–04) for the preservation of her husband's work. Watts List of women artists exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, exhibited her work at The Woman's Building (Chicago), The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Watts, through the Home Arts and Industries Association (HAIA), worked to create employment for rural communities through the preservation of handicrafts. During the execution of the Watts Mortuary Chapel, Watts trained workers in clay modelling, an initiative that eventually led to the establishment of the Compton Potters' Guild in 1899. She was a firm believer in the idea that anyone given the opportunity could produce things of beauty and that everyone should have a craft within which they could express themselves creatively. She supported the revival of the Celtic style, the indigenous artistic expression of Scotland and Ireland. In 1899, she was asked to design rugs in this style for the carpet company Alexander Morton & Co of Darvel, Liberty's main producer of furnishing fabrics. In cooperation with the Congested Districts Board for Ireland, Congested Districts Board, Morton had established a workshop in Donegal (town), Donegal, Ireland, to employ local women who had little opportunity to earn a livelihood. Watts pioneered Liberty's Celtic style, with much of the imagery for the Celtic Revival carpets, book-bindings, metalwork, and textiles for Liberty & Co. being based on her earlier designs at the Watts Mortuary Chapel. Later in life, Watts wrote ''The Word in the Pattern'' (1905), which details the use of symbols in the Watts Mortuary Chapel, and completed a three-volume biography of her husband, ''Annals of an Artist's Life'' (1912).

Watts Mortuary Chapel

Image:Wattscemeterychapel.jpg, Watts Mortuary Chapel Image:Wattschapel-4At8-0674.jpg, Chapel, showing in foreground terracotta grave marker made in the Compton pottery Image:watts mortuary chapel door 1.jpg, The door File:Wattschapel-4At8-0679.jpg, Ceiling apex File:Wattschapel-4At8-0680.jpg, Embrasure & "altar" File:Wattschapel-4At8-0688.jpg, Tree of Life & Seraphs File:Wattschapel-4At8-0671.jpg, Showing campanile

References

Sources

*Barbara Coffey Bryant, "Watts, George Frederic (1817–1904)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 200
accessed 30 Dec 2006
*Veronica Franklin Gould, ''Mary Seton Watts – Unsung Heroine of the Art Nouveau'' (1998)

External links