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Ann Macbeth
Ann Macbeth (25 September 1875 – 23 March 1948) was a British embroiderer, designer, teacher and author. She was a member of the Glasgow Movement where she was an associate of Margaret MacDonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and many other 'Glasgow Girls'. She was also an active suffragette and designed banners for organisations supporting women’s suffrage, such as the Women’s Social and Political Union
Macbeth was born in the Bolton suburb of Halliwell, and studied at the Glasgow School of Art. When Macbeth was a child, she had a scarlet fever attack. She was the eldest of nine children. Her father was Norman Macbeth, a mechanical engineer, and her mother was Annie MacNicol.
She came from an artistic background: her uncles included the artists Robert Walker Macbeth and Henry Macbeth-Raeburn and her paternal grandfather was the portraitist Norman Macbeth. In 1902, she participated in the 'Scottish Section' of the First International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in Turin where she won a silver medal for the design of the Glasgow Coat of Arms on one side of the banner presented to Professor Rucker of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
After completing her studies at the Glasgow School of Art in 1901 Macbeth became assistant to Jessie Newbery and her striking embroidery work was given regular coverage in The Studio. In 1906 she started teaching metalwork at the Glasgow School of Art. There she also taught bookbinding from 1907 to 1911, and ceramic decoration from 1912 onwards.
From roughly 1902 to 1911, the needlework department was the largest of the craft sections at the Glasgow School of Art. There was a requirement that all Glasgow schoolgirls should be taught to sew. Work constructed by Newberry, Macbeth, and their students was of two main types: the bold, appliquéd, patterned style inspired by nature and found on practical items, or the more conventional aesthetic consisting of picture panels, which were found on fire screens or ecclesiastical hangings. Newberry might have been the bolder of the two designers, although Macbeth embroidered panels more extensively with expressive stitching. These embroidered panels featured young girls with garlands or girls set within a landscape, similar to the stained glass pieces of the period.
In 1908 she succeeded Jessie Newbery as Head of the Needlework and Embroidery section at the Glasgow School of Art, and in 1912 she became the Director of Studies in the Needlework-Decorative Arts Studio. In 1911 she took part in the planning for the Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry, sitting on the committee of the Decorative and Fine Arts Section.
Together with the educational psychologist Margaret Swanson Macbeth published the textbook Educational Needlecraft in 1911. The textbook won international acclaim and widely influenced the teaching of needlecraft. It remained on the Scottish school syllabus until the 1950s. The embroidery classes at the Glasgow School of Art were open to the community as a whole. Saturday classes for schoolteachers led to a certificate by the Scottish Education Department. In her teaching and publications Macbeth spread the radical approach to design of the Glasgow Movement and put into practice the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement. She elevated the status of home dressmaking and encouraged women to create their own individualistic clothing. She brought designed dresses within reach of women with modest means by advocating the use of "humble materials" such as cotton, linen and crash. In her publications Macbeth encouraged a new generation of designer-craftswomen, discouraging copying of patterns.
The use of these humble materials separated her from artisans of the Morris circle, who used rich silks. Macbeth considered the silks and satins most popular with the previous generation of art-embroiderers to not only be more costly, but ‘really less artistic’.
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Ann Macbeth
Ann Macbeth (25 September 1875 – 23 March 1948) was a British embroiderer, designer, teacher and author. She was a member of the Glasgow Movement where she was an associate of Margaret MacDonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and many other 'Glasgow Girls'. She was also an active suffragette and designed banners for organisations supporting women’s suffrage, such as the Women’s Social and Political Union
Macbeth was born in the Bolton suburb of Halliwell, and studied at the Glasgow School of Art. When Macbeth was a child, she had a scarlet fever attack. She was the eldest of nine children. Her father was Norman Macbeth, a mechanical engineer, and her mother was Annie MacNicol.
She came from an artistic background: her uncles included the artists Robert Walker Macbeth and Henry Macbeth-Raeburn and her paternal grandfather was the portraitist Norman Macbeth. In 1902, she participated in the 'Scottish Section' of the First International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art in Turin where she won a silver medal for the design of the Glasgow Coat of Arms on one side of the banner presented to Professor Rucker of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
After completing her studies at the Glasgow School of Art in 1901 Macbeth became assistant to Jessie Newbery and her striking embroidery work was given regular coverage in The Studio. In 1906 she started teaching metalwork at the Glasgow School of Art. There she also taught bookbinding from 1907 to 1911, and ceramic decoration from 1912 onwards.
From roughly 1902 to 1911, the needlework department was the largest of the craft sections at the Glasgow School of Art. There was a requirement that all Glasgow schoolgirls should be taught to sew. Work constructed by Newberry, Macbeth, and their students was of two main types: the bold, appliquéd, patterned style inspired by nature and found on practical items, or the more conventional aesthetic consisting of picture panels, which were found on fire screens or ecclesiastical hangings. Newberry might have been the bolder of the two designers, although Macbeth embroidered panels more extensively with expressive stitching. These embroidered panels featured young girls with garlands or girls set within a landscape, similar to the stained glass pieces of the period.
In 1908 she succeeded Jessie Newbery as Head of the Needlework and Embroidery section at the Glasgow School of Art, and in 1912 she became the Director of Studies in the Needlework-Decorative Arts Studio. In 1911 she took part in the planning for the Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry, sitting on the committee of the Decorative and Fine Arts Section.
Together with the educational psychologist Margaret Swanson Macbeth published the textbook Educational Needlecraft in 1911. The textbook won international acclaim and widely influenced the teaching of needlecraft. It remained on the Scottish school syllabus until the 1950s. The embroidery classes at the Glasgow School of Art were open to the community as a whole. Saturday classes for schoolteachers led to a certificate by the Scottish Education Department. In her teaching and publications Macbeth spread the radical approach to design of the Glasgow Movement and put into practice the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement. She elevated the status of home dressmaking and encouraged women to create their own individualistic clothing. She brought designed dresses within reach of women with modest means by advocating the use of "humble materials" such as cotton, linen and crash. In her publications Macbeth encouraged a new generation of designer-craftswomen, discouraging copying of patterns.
The use of these humble materials separated her from artisans of the Morris circle, who used rich silks. Macbeth considered the silks and satins most popular with the previous generation of art-embroiderers to not only be more costly, but ‘really less artistic’.