Great Scot!

Patrick Argent gave an inspiring talk to the Friends of Scarborough Art Society about his hero, Charles Rennie McIntosh (who changed his name to Mackintosh).

Patrick regards him as Scotland’s greatest creative artist. The work of other great artists’ looks dated after 50 or more years but Mackintosh’s work was avant-garde in his lifetime and continues to appear avantgarde and modernist now.

Mackintosh joined a firm of architects in 1899 and worked productively in Glasgow until 1914. He paid great attention to every last detail of the buildings he designed; the interior design, the furniture, the decoration were all his original ideas, simple and revolutionary. He was skilled in many spheres and fused design with art. The Glasgow School of Art is his best known work, at present being rebuilt after the disastrous fire. His wife, also a talented artist, worked closely with him: “I have the talent, she has the genius”. His ideas contrasted so markedly from Victorian tastes that his work was not fully appreciated in Britain, being more widely praised in Europe.

He and his wife moved to the Suffolk coast in 1914 and as he received much correspondence from admirers in Europe, he was suspected to have German sympathies and had to move to London. After the war he and his wife moved to France. He died in 1928 aged 59.

Patrick showed slides to demonstrate Mackintosh’s constantly developing ideas in design and decoration, his watercolours of flowers, his distinctive rose design and lettering. He also showed a few examples of would-be imitators, ‘mock’intosh’, and tasteless abuse of his ideas, ‘muck’intosh’.

Patrick finished by getting each person in the audience to copy a drawing by Picasso which he presented upside down, to demonstrate that anyone can draw better than they feel they can.

The seating for talks in the art gallery is limited and unfortunately we had to turn away some people who wished to hear Patrick, for which we apologise.

The Friends next meeting will be on Monday March 13 at 2.30pm in Scarborough Art Gallery, when John Oxley will give a talk about the York City walls. Admission for visitors £4 (includes refreshment). Please book a place with the art gallery by on 01723 374753.