Frances MacNair
British, 1874 - 1921
IMAGE GALLERY
12 pictures
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BIOGRAPHY
Frances Macdonald, like her sister Margaret, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Herbert MacNair (whom she married in 1899), belonged to the group known as 'The Four' which pioneered the Glasgow Style. She trained at the Glasgow School of Art, where she met MacNair. Her work and development has much in common with those of her sister, although her figures tend to be more emaciated and anguished. Like Margaret's, her work is characterised by an interest in symbolism, mythology and fairy subjects. By 1900 she moved to Liverpool, where MacNair was Instructor in Design at the School of Architecture and Applied Art, but they returned to Glasgow in 1908. MacNair had little success as a watercolourist and life for the couple was difficult. Such late works as Man makes the beads of life but women thread them and Tis a long path which wanders to desire are no doubt a reflection of this.
Frances MacNair died in 1921 at the age of 47, reportedly of a cerebral haemorrhage, although rumour persisted that she had taken her own life. After her death, Herbert MacNair destroyed most of her work, as well as his own.
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