Side Chair - Charles Rennie Mackintosh (British, 1868-1928)

1897. Oak and silk, 54 3/8 x 20 x 18" (138.1 x 50.8 x 45.7 cm), seat h. 17" (43.2 cm). Gift of the Glasgow School of Art

155.1958

Shaping Modernity: Design 1880-1980

December 23, 2009–ongoing

In a 1902 rant against "Scotto-Continental 'New Art'" largely directed at Mackintosh, the critic H. F. Jennings talked of “extravagance bordering on insanity," "lunatical topsy turvydom," and the pursuit of novelty at the expense of comfort and utility. Although the materials and construction methods used by this architect and designer were not technologically innovative, on a more abstract level the dark, sleek form of this chair can be read as a poetic response to the industrial culture of Glasgow, once called "the Workshop of the World," and as an attempt to give physical form to the sense of risk and drama implicit in the city's boom/bust economy. The chair was designed for one of the famous Glasgow tearooms commissioned by local businesswoman and temperance supporter Kate Cranston. It also appeared in the 1900 Vienna Secession exhibition and in the home of Mackintosh and his artist wife, Margaret Macdonald.