Over the last few decades, the Davidson family has generously gifted a significant portion of its collection of works by late 19th and early 20th century Scottish artists to The Hunterian.
This collection was originally built by William Davidson (1861–1945) and his wife, Jean Steel Reid (1866–1945). At their death, it numbered over 80 framed paintings and works on paper.
Their granddaughters, Winifred and Margaret, have left over 40 paintings and drawings from this collection to The Hunterian.
Here, Anne Dulau Beveridge, Curator of Art at The Hunterian, explores the works in the collection by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald.
Did you know that together with their two surviving sons, Hamish and Cameron, William Davidson and Jean Steel Reid were instrumental in preserving the legacy of their friends Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald?
Without them, the stylish, pioneering interiors of the Mackintoshes’ Glasgow home, put together between 1905 and 1914, would probably not have been preserved as they were left by the couple when they decided to move to England just before the First World War.
The fact that visitors to the Hunterian Art Gallery can experience in person the reconstitution of these interiors at the Mackintosh House owes a great deal to the Davidsons.
Watercolours by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald
William Davidson was a reliable friend and dedicated supporter of Mackintosh and Macdonald. He bought over 20 watercolours from them, particularly during their difficult later years in London and France.
Davidson donated 12 flower watercolours by Mackintosh to The Hunterian in 1934. This was a year after a commemorative exhibition he organised to celebrate the remarkable career of his friend. These watercolours are among the most frequently requested loans from The Hunterian.
They are also at the core of The Hunterian’s extensive collection of botanical studies by the artist. For more on this, see Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Art is the Flower by Pamela Robertson, the Hunterian Art Gallery, 1996.
More Mackintosh works owned by the Davidson family have joined this core group over the years.
My favourite among those gifted by his granddaughters include Begonias and The Church of La Llagonne by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and A Rosebud by Margaret Macdonald.
During the years he spent in London, from 1915 to 1923, Mackintosh produced vibrant textile designs. He also painted a small group of related still life compositions.
These were his main source of income at the time. The dissolution of his architectural practice in 1913 had a negative impact on his activities as an architect. The restrictions on new building which followed the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 compounded matters too.
Begonias was acquired by Davidson in 1919, probably in response to a plea from Mackintosh for financial support. The letter included here stresses how helpful such purchases could be, enabling the artist to pay his rent
Just like the textile designs the artist was busy working on then, it draws on his lifelong study of plant forms. It is also one of the finest of his London still lifes.
La Llagonne is a small hamlet to the north of Mont Louis in the Pyrenean mountains. The landscape belongs to a series of over 40 watercolours of the local landscape and architecture of the area in the South of France which Mackintosh and Macdonald called home between 1923 and 1927.
Mackintosh delighted in the patterns he found in the outlines of fields and the angles of rooflines, gables and windows. He favoured bright, windless days. They allowed him to work outdoors and to see his subject crisply defined by light and shadow.
It highlights how much the spot has changed since, as the authors of Charles Rennie Mackintosh en Roussillon explain in their website dedicated to the artist’s work in the South of France.
The watercolour appeared in the 1933 memorial exhibition of Mackintosh’s work. It has since been part of another four exhibitions since. The latest was the National Gallery of Scotland’s Charles Rennie Mackintosh in France in 2005–06.
A Rosebud featured in the 1933 memorial exhibition, where an error of attribution led the work to be credited to her husband.
It is a characteristically delicate and decorative study of dreamlike, stylised figures. Here, we see a woman and child, and it has joined a handful of watercolours by Margaret Macdonald in The Hunterian collection.
Bringing the arts into everyday life
While celebrating the impact of Margaret and Winifred Davidson’s gifts and bequests on the development of The Hunterian’s collection of Scottish Art, I cannot resist inserting one more work by Mackintosh, bequeathed by their father, Hamish Reid Davidson, in 1972.
Titled Textile Design: Odalisque, it consists of tongue-in-cheek female nudes adorned with stylised roses repeated over the page. Like Begonias, the design dates from the artist’s London years.
In those years, the Mackintoshes were close to the painter, writer and sculptor John Duncan Fergusson and his partner Margaret Morris, dancer, choreographer, teacher, writer and artist.
Together, the two couples became involved with the Arts League of Service. This was a voluntary organisation established in 1919 “To bring the Arts into Everyday Life”.
This design immediately brings to my mind Fergusson’s nudes from the 1910s, represented in The Hunterian by Les Eus (GLAHA:43493) and Fleurs et Fruits (GLAHA:43488).
It’s a reminder of Morris and Fergusson’s influence on the Mackintoshes’ decision to move to the South of France. From 1913 onwards, Fergusson and Morris spent their summer in Antibes whenever they could. They relished the sun, warmth, relaxed lifestyle and cheap cost of living it came with.
Fergusson and Morris’ enthusiasm won over the Mackintoshes, but they were not the only ones. Over the next few decades, several more Scottish artists decided to experience life on the Mediterranean French coast. This is illustrated by the landscape, capturing a view of Cassis, by Stanley Cursiter, below.
Its purchase complements The Hunterian collection of works by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his contemporaries. The watercolour further illustrates early 20th century Scottish artists’ interest in the South of France.
This collection features around 40 watercolours and drawings by Margaret Macdonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. While preserving their artistic legacy, it also underscores the Davidson family’s role as early 20th century Scottish art supporters.
You can discover more about the Davidson collection through our online catalogue.
For more on the different artwork in the Davidson collection – from works by the Mackintoshes to the Glasgow Boys and Girls – explore The Hunterian blog!
