Frances MacNair (also known as Frances MacDonald, and Frances MacDonald MacNair, 1873–1921) was an English (though sometimes described as Scottish) artist, best known for her design work in the “Glasgow Style” of the 1890s.
Born near Wolverhampton, Frances and her older sister, the better-known Margaret MacDonald moved to Glasgow in 1890, where both sisters attented the Glasgow School of Art. In 1891, they met Charles Rennie Macintosh (an architech and designer) and Herbert MacNair (another artist); later, they would become known as “The Four”, a central part of The Glasgow School.
During the mid-1890s the sisters left the School to set up an independent studio together, where Frances also produced a wide variety of other artistic work, including embroidery, gesso panels and water colour paintings She was influenced by the work of William Blake and Aubrey Beardsley and this is reflected in her use of elongated figures and linear elements. The sisters exhibited in London, Liverpool and Venice.
In 1899 she married MacNair and joined him in Liverpool where he was teaching at the School of Architecture and Applied Art. The couple painted watercolours and designed interiors, exhibiting a Writing Room at the International Exhibition of Modern Art in Turin, and Frances began teaching.
With the McNairs established in Liverpool by 1899, the collaborative links were broken, with the one exception of the major Scottish presence at the 1902 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in Turin, where each couple exhibited an important room installation [The Group of Four, Hunterian Gallery].
In the early 1900s they also exhibited in Liverpool, London, Vienna and Dresden. The closure of the School in 1905, and the loss of the MacNair family wealth through business failure, led to a slow decline in their careers, and they returned to Glasgow in 1909. In the years that followed, Frances painted a moving series of symbolist watercolours addressing the choices facing women, such as marriage and motherhood. For a look at such choices in fairytales, check out Joan Gould's Spinning Straw into Gold
Frances' achievements are less well known than those of her sister Margaret, not only as a result of her departure from Glasgow, but also because her husband destroyed many of her works after her death in 1921. The largest single holding of her work is housed at the Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow.
Frances & Fairy Tales
During her time as an independent studio artist, Frances and Margaret collaborated on graphics, textile designs, book illustrations and metalwork, developing a distinctive style influenced by mysticism, symbolism and Celtic imagery. Her work was also influenced by Aubrey Beardsley (consider the linear elements and elongated figure in our cover page) and William Blake; Beardsley is known for, amongst other things, his illustrations of Le Morte d’Arthur.
[contents]