Ann Macbeth and Rug Design

Illustration: Ann Macbeth. Rug design, 1905.

Ann Macbeth is well known as an embroidery designer, teacher and author. She succeeded Jessie Newbery as head of the embroidery department at Glasgow School of art and was a pivotal member of the later Glasgow movement headed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald. She was also the author of a number of popular and influential books mostly concerned with the practical aspects of embroidery, needlework and dressmaking. These books are listed in the reference links section at the end of this article.

However, as the illustration above shows, she was also interested in a number of other aspects of textile design and in this case that of rug design. It is often hard to appreciate or even discover, how wide ranging and inquisitive many artists and designers have been through their individual creative careers. It is often the case that individuals are tagged with a descriptive heading so that their work is then encased inside that description and any work in other mediums is trivialised or ignored.

This is not to say that this rug produced by Macbeth in 1905 is unknown. However, it does reflect a certain amount of pigeon-holing, whereby the broad and general work of an artist or designer can be manipulated and engineered so that aspects that could possibly reveal another dimension to that individual are seen as superficial, when in fact these examples of work outside of the usual remit can say much about the creative direction or journey of that individual.

Illustration: Ann Macbeth, 1900.

The actual design of the rug looks very different from what we would expect from Ann Macbeth. As far as embroidery was concerned, part of her work was very much locked into the style of the Glasgow School with typical Mackintosh rose motifs being used repeatedly. However, there was also a much more personal and flowing style that she tended to reserve for work that used fairy tale imagery as compositional narrative.

There is little abstract geometrically conceived ideas in her work so it would be interesting to know where the idea for this rug originated. It would be a fair guess to say that it could well have derived from a study of original and traditional carpet design from Middle or Central Asia. This was a relatively common practise at the time and was not considered plagiarism as such, but conceived to be more of a study of a traditional design in order to understand the way that design works, and perhaps even gain a little understanding as to thinking behind the original designer. This could well be the case with this example as it looks as if it is possibly an enlarged version of a single motif. However, this is only supposition and not fact, it could well have been an original idea entirely, or a partial inspiration from a traditional carpet.

Either way it is interesting to see the expansion that some artists and designers have made into other genres and mediums and how they interpreted and even reinterpreted their own ideas as to design and decoration given the different parameters that were present in seemingly unfamiliar mediums.

Further reading links:
Educational Needlecraft (1911)
The country woman's rug book (Paragraph Press reprint series of craft & hobby handbooks)
SCHOOL AND FIRESIDE CRAFTS
Embroidered and laced leather work
The playwork book
Glasgow Girls
The Flower and the Green Leaf: Glasgow School of Art in the Time of Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Textile Treasures at the Glasgow School of Art
The unbroken thread: A century of embroidery & weaving at Glasgow School of Art
GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART EMBROIDERY, 1894-1920.
Glasgow School of Art: The History
Glasgow School of Art: a History
The Glasgow Style: Artists in the Decorative Arts, Circa 1900 (Schiffer Book with Values)
Hand, Heart and Soul: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland

The Studio Magazine

Illustration: The Studio magazine, 1893.

The Studio Magazine was founded in Britain in 1893 by Charles Holme as an informative monthly periodical on contemporary fine and decorative art.

The Studio always had an extensive readership that included much of the European and North American art and design population in particular, whether through the educational establishment, professional careerists or interested amateurs. It initially started by championing a number of contemporary art and design movements. It was a firm believer in the Arts & Crafts philosophy as well as the ideals of the Art Nouveau movement, two styles that were not always happy being in each other's company, though shared more than they often cared to know.

The Studio produced a number of special features whereby an issue would be entirely devoted to a specific subject. For example, a 1901 issue entitled Modern British Domestic Architecture and Decoration featured Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of designers. The publicity generated by the magazine helped to familiarise the Glasgow movement throughout Europe, but particularly within Austria and Germany where subscription to The Studio had always been relatively high.

The magazine did much to help establish Arts & Crafts organisations within Europe. It was a particular lifeline for many of the subject nations, such as Finland, Norway and Poland, which had no legitimate political representation apart from articles published within magazines like The Studio, which highlighted their own legitimate cultural heritage and contemporary outlook. It is perhaps hard to appreciate today what an impact The Studio magazine must have had on large sections of the art and design world, particularly within its first couple of decades of publication. It was a lifeline to many who had no other localised information or outlet to the contemporary world of design and decoration. It helped to widen both interest and understanding of the major contemporary art and design movements of the twentieth century in both Europe and North America. In 1911 for example, The Studio set aside a whole issue to Peasant Art in Austria and Hungary, which helped to expand the knowledge of the outside world to the many cultures that made up the patchwork quilt that was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Studio also highlighted and helped to promote a number of artists, designers and decorative styles, throughout its life. It championed Aubrey Beardsley and commissioned the artist to produce the first cover of the magazine in 1893. It also had regular features promoting anything from nineteenth century Japanese prints to North American Studio pottery.

From 1906 onwards, the magazine published an annual summary of all the best in contemporary architecture, interior design and decoration. This annual summary went on until the last publication in 1980. The Decorative Art annual, or Decorative Art in Modern Interiors as it was renamed in the mid-1960s, championed all the major design movements of the twentieth century, from Art Nouveau, through to Art Deco, Modernism and Post War design. These annuals are now published as decade themed books by Taschen and are listed with links to Amazon in the Reference links section below.

Further reading links:
Decorative Arts 1900s & 1910s (Varia)
Decorative Arts 1920s (Varia)
Decorative Arts 1930s & 1940s (Varia)
Decorative Art 1950s
Decorative Art 1960s
Decorative Art 1970s
The Studio. An Illustrated Magazine of Fine & Applied Art. 1900: Volume 18