Glasgow and Charles Rennie Mackintosh with Alexander Collins
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This conversation will address the life and work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the city he inhabited. From humble beginnings, he became a leading figure in contemporary artistic practice and a partner of a leading architectural business in Glasgow circa 1900.
In collaboration with his wife Margaret, her sister Frances, and his best friend Herbert McNair, he found an emerging artistic and aesthetic style that evolved into the architectural and design language he is known for today. He worked across media, designing gesamtkunstwerk that were perhaps too radical for Glasgow during his lifetime. Throughout his career, he worked on some of the most revolutionary and inspiring buildings in the city, including newspaper buildings, domestic homes, tea rooms, and his much-beloved Glasgow School of Art. By exploring his designs and their relationship with Scottish architectural history, European artistic movements, and Glasgow's importance in the empire, we will discover Mackintosh's powerful break from the past as well as his commercial failure at Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh.
Led by an expert on art history, Alexander Collins, this interactive seminar will explore the creativity and architectural excellence of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with an increased sense of Mackintosh's radical vision for art and his continuing importance today.
Alex Collins is a PhD student in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh, where he researches medieval art and architecture. He studied his MA in Art History and English at the University of St Andrews in 2009, before working in heritage and local government. At the University of Edinburgh, Alex teaches art and architectural history.
This conversation is suitable for all ages
90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.
This was an interesting talk about an artist I've long admired, but knew nothing about. The talk was logically organized and nicely illustrated with examples of his work, particularly the architecture.
There was a lot of information about the context of CRM's work... the art scene at the time in Glasgow and elsewhere (like Vienna), his predecessors and contemporaries, and his immediate circle of artists.
It's refreshing to see the range of topics, and provides an outlet I value during these travel-free times
I would recommend Context Conversations because I believe scholarship transcends classrooms and institutional settings.
I have done walking tours with Context from 2001 in Rome (when you were Scala Reale) through 2020 in Capetown. I have often recommended Context to friends. My previous experiences have ranged from good to thrilling. Unfortunately, this Zoom experience was disappointing. Besides technology problems, the speaker was too academic and dry and the slides weren’t great. I found some on Wikipedia while he was speaking and they were the same photos but better quality.