£60,000 MacNair watercolour hailed

Nov 30 2012

A rare watercolour by the sister-in-law of Charles Rennie Mackintosh is set to go on public display after it was acquired for £60,000 by the National Galleries of Scotland.

The work titled Sleep is the first by Frances Macdonald MacNair, a key figure in the Glasgow Style movement of the period 1890-1910, in the Scottish national collection. It belonged to an American couple, Don and Eleanor Taffner, and is one of no more than a dozen watercolours by the artist that survive.

MacNair's husband destroyed much of her work after her death in 1921, which was possibly suicide.

Simon Groom, director of modern and contemporary art at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: "We have wanted to acquire a work by Frances MacNair for many years, but they are incredibly rare. Had we been able to choose just one work, it would have been this one, so we are obviously delighted to have it."

Frances Macdonald MacNair was born near Wolverhampton and moved with her family to Glasgow in the late 1880s. In 1891 Frances and her older sister Margaret enrolled at Glasgow School of Art where they met fellow students Charles Rennie Mackintosh and James Herbert McNair.

They began collaborating on projects and became known as The Four. MacNair and Frances Macdonald married in 1899 and Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald in 1900.

They enjoyed international reputations, cemented by the appearance of their work at the International Exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin in 1902.

Just seven of MacNair's works have appeared at auction in the past 20 years, with the Taffners buying five of them, including Sleep.

The work will be displayed at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art next autumn alongside The Mysterious Garden by her sister, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh.

Mr Groom said: "This is a haunting, enigmatic picture which shows Scottish artists at the forefront of European symbolist art."