Annie French (6 February 1872 – 27 January 1965) was a Scottish painter, engraver, illustrator, and designer associated with the

Glasgow School 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 Schoo ...

Biography

French was a student of

Jean Delville Jean Delville, born Jean Libert (19 January 1867 – 19 January 1953), was a Belgian symbolist painter, author, poet, polemicist, teacher, and Theosophist. Delville was the leading exponent of the Belgian Idealist movement in art during the 18 ...

and Fra Newbery at the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; ) 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, and design. These are all awa ...

from 1896 to 1902. She shared a studio with artist Bessie Young and fellow Glasgow School painter Jane Younger from 1906 to 1914. She returned to the Glasgow School to teach ceramic decoration from 1909 to 1912. She published books of black and white illustration in the style of Beardsley. ''The Picture Book'' and ''The Plumed Hat'' were republished in elite art publications in 1906 and 1900 respectively. French was married to painter, engraver, and illustrator George Woolliscroft Rhead from 1914 until his death in 1920. She died at

St Helier St Helier (; Jèrriais: ; ) is the Capital city, capital of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. It is the most populous of the twelve parishes of Jersey, with a population of 35,822, over one-third of the island' ...

on the island of

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

on 25 January 1965.Ailsa Tanner, ‘Glasgow Girls (act. 1880–1920)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 201
accessed 17 April 2017
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Art

As a member of a group of designers and artists known as the Glasgow Girls, French was best known for

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

illustrations in the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

style. Her influences included

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( ; 21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. ...

, Jessie M. King, and

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 Macd ...

. French's work was exhibited at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

and published in '' The Studio''.

Gallery

The_Garland_by_Annie_French.jpg, "The Garland", published in ''The Studio'' vol 38, 1906 Illustration_for_"The_Ballad_of_the_Banish't_Man_by_Anne_French.jpg, Illustration for "The Ballad of the Banish’t Man", displayed at 1902 exhibition of the Glasgow School of Art, and published in ''The Studio''. Summer_Time_by_Miss_Annie_French.jpg, Illustration of “Summer Time” from '' The Studio''

References

External links

The Annie French Collection
- collection of business papers of Annie French * {{DEFAULTSORT:French, Annie 1872 births 1965 deaths 19th-century Scottish painters 19th-century Scottish women painters 20th-century Scottish painters Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art Artists from Glasgow Art Nouveau painters Glasgow School People from Govan Scottish designers 19th-century Scottish engravers 20th-century Scottish engravers Scottish women engravers Scottish women illustrators British women engravers 20th-century British engravers 20th-century Scottish women painters