A Curator's Work is Never Done

It is a simple narrative: a History of Art degree at the University of London, a post-graduate course in Art Gallery and Museum Studies at the University of Manchester, and then the offer of a job in Glasgow.

The one unexpected element is that until I came to Glasgow I had no knowledge at all of Mackintosh. If there is a place to learn, however, it is here. Glasgow is the city where Mackintosh was born, grew up, trained, and practised as an architect. The city boasts his most important buildings and the most significant collections of his work and that of his close contemporaries. Of the latter, the holding at the University is certainly the most important. It comprises Mackintosh's estate of over 800 works on paper and the contents of the house where Mackintosh and his talented artist-wife, Margaret Macdonald, lived from 1906 to 1914.

Today Mackintosh is rightly celebrated world-wide as one of the most creative architect-designers of his time. He was one of the leading exponents of the concept of the room as a work of art, creating at The Hill House, his domestic masterpiece. At a series of tea rooms in Glasgow city-centre he created interiors of decorative and symbolic beauty, set with furniture of breathtaking formal sophistication. His architecture presents inventive, witty and often highly complex compositions of detail and form. And that is not all, for he was also a watercolour painter of exceptional skills, most vividly seen in his exquisite flower studies and late French landscapes.

Growing Admiration

Over the years my admiration for Mackintosh's achievements has not diminished but grown. However many times one visits his masterpiece The Glasgow School of Art or The Hill House, one always notices some new subtlety or sympathetic touch. And it is on the basis of his work that Mackintosh is judged as he left few notes or documents to establish his legacy. Though sparse, the documents that do survive are important for they shed light on his personality. In particular the letters he wrote late in life to his beloved wife Margaret, which I edited a few years ago, reveal a warmth, a gentle humour, and a tenderness that are at times very moving.

The Mackintosh collection has presented me with wonderful opportunities for travel, research, and collaborative projects. These included the award-winning retrospective of Mackintosh's work, organised by Glasgow Museums in 1996-7, for which I acted as guest co-curator. Its US tour allowed me the privilege of working behind the scenes at three of America's great museums: the Metropolitan, the Art Institute of Chicago and Los Angeles County Museum. I also worked in partnership with National Museums Liverpool on an exhibition of the work of Frances Macdonald and J. Herbert McNair. Research has taken me to the places Mackintosh knew and loved, including Holy Island, Northumberland, the South of France, and Vienna; introduced me to people who remembered Mackintosh; and brought my attention to previously undocumented works and new information all of which contribute to our overall understanding of Mackintosh.

One of the rewarding aspects of working in Glasgow as part of the Mackintosh heritage has been the opportunity to work with the city's other Mackintosh properties and collections, including the Glasgow Museums, the Glasgow School of Art, The Hill House, the House for an Art Lover and the Willow Tea Rooms. The collobarations have proved stimulating and rewarding and over the years much has been achieved. There is still a lot to do as we all continue to care for and develop Glasgow's unique Mackintosh legacy so I hope you will have the opportunity to visit us soon and see the rewards of a curator's work, which as they say is never done.