page_title: Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh
section_title: "The Glasgow Four" and Collaborative Work
hierarchical_section_title: Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh / "The Glasgow Four" and Collaborative Work
caption_attribution_description: English: Japanese Witch Hazel, Walberswick. Charles &amp; Margaret Mackintosh. 1915.
context_page_description: Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh was an English-born artist who worked in Scotland, and whose design work became one of the defining features of the "Glasgow Style" during the 1890s.
context_section_description: It is unclear exactly when the Macdonald sisters met Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his friend/colleague Herbert MacNair, but they probably met around 1892 at the Glasgow School of Art (Mackintosh and MacNair were studying as night students), introduced by the Headmaster Francis Newbery because he recognised that they were working in similar styles. By 1894 they were showing their work together in student exhibitions, some of which was made collaboratively. Reception of the work was mixed, and it was commented that the gaunt, linear forms of the Macdonald sisters' artwork - clearly showing the influence of Aubrey Beardsley - were 'ghoulish' and earned them the moniker 'The Spook School'. They became known locally as "The Four".
  Most collaborative work in the 1890s was with her sister, particularly following the opening of their studio in 1896. Some works were made by both together, while others were series of works, such as a set of four paintings with repoussé frames on the seasons where each two works on the theme. They also created a set of illustrations for William Morris' Defence of Guenevere that was recently re-discovered in the special collections of the University at Buffalo.
  She created several important interior schemes with her husband. Many of these were executed at the early part of the twentieth century; and include the Rose Boudoir at the International Exhibition at Turin in 1903, the designs for House for an Art Lover in 1900, and the Willow Tea Rooms in 1902. She exhibited with Mackintosh at the 1900 Vienna Secession, where she was an influence on the Secessionists Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann. They continued to be popular in the Viennese art scene, both exhibiting at the Viennese International Art Exhibit in 1909.
  In 1902, the couple received a major Viennese commission: Fritz Waerndorfer, the initial financer of the Wiener Werkstätte, was building a new villa outside Vienna showcasing the work of many local architects. Hoffmann and Koloman Moser were already designing two of its rooms; he invited the Mackintoshes to design the music room.  That room was decorated with panels of Margaret's art: the Opera of the Winds, the Opera of the Seas, and the Seven Princesses, a new wall-sized triptych considered by some to be her finest work. This collaboration was described by contemporary critic Amelia Levetus as "perhaps their greatest work, for they were allowed perfectly free scope".
caption: Japanese Witch Hazel, Walberswick, 1915, one of a number of botanical illustrations carrying Margaret's initials alongside those of her husband Charles. It is sometimes suggested that these are collaborative works but Roger Billcliffe ( amongst others ) asserts that Margaret's presence during the work's creation is the reason for her inclusion.
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