The two large gesso panels I’ll discuss here were made for the Miss Cranston’s Lunch and Tea Rooms on Ingram Street in 1900. The famous Willow Tea Rooms underwent a major conservation project a couple years ago and has re-opened as Mackintosh at the Willow and you can read more about it’s gorgeous Salon de Luxe at a post I wrote here. Her dress is circa 1865 in style, while her hat is bang on trend. Cranston was an interesting character, seen in photographs mixing vintage dresses (some 30-40 years our of date in style) with contemporary hats, showing her eclectic tastes that prompted her to hire the young and original Mackintosh. It’s been nearly 15 years since I moved to our dear green place to study, and my earliest research was focused on the Mackintosh-Macdonald collaborative projects, especially for Kate Cranston’s tearooms. When locals hear my (somewhat diluted) American accent for the first time, they ask me ‘what brought ye to Glasgow’? I usually answer ‘Charles Rennie Mackintosh’, but in truth, it was his wife Margaret Macdonald, and the work they created together. We are working them together and that makes the work very pleasant.” -Charles Rennie Mackintosh to Hermann Muthesius, July 1900 “Just now, we are working on two large panels for the frieze… Miss Margaret Macdonald is doing one and I am doing the other. Provenance: Removed from the Ingram Street Tea Rooms, 1971. Original Location: Ladies Luncheon Room, Miss Cranston’s tea rooms, Ingram Street, Glasgow. Collection: Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, E.1981.177.1-3. Oil-painted gesso on hessian and scrim, set with twine, glass beads, thread, motherof- pearl, and tin leaf 158.4 x 457 cm.
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