Details

Object type

stencil card

Artist/Maker

Guthrie and Wells maker

Charles Rennie Mackintosh designer

Culture/School

Glasgow Style

Place Associated

Scotland, Glasgow, Buchanan Street, Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms (place associated); Scotland, Glasgow (place made)

Date

1896-1897

Materials

card, paint

Dimensions

framed: 757 mm x 587 mm x 27 mm;unframed: 439 mm x 360 mm

Description

Stencil card for mural scheme in the Luncheon Room at Miss Cranston's Buchanan Street Tea Rooms. Brown card with stencilled design of a stylised plant form in black paint. Cut-out areas of the design are edged with markings of burgundy and rose pink paint from execution. Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh about 1896-7, made and executed by Guthrie & Wells, 1897.

This stencil is for a repeating scheme of five stylised totem like trees that ran along the south wall of the Luncheon Room at Miss Cranston’s Buchanan Street Tearooms in Glasgow. The mural was one of three that Mackintosh designed for his first tearoom commission between late 1896 and May 1897. The trees lined the wall between regularly spaced pilasters that were stencilled with large flamboyant peacocks. The canopy of each tree is a tangle of organic lines, Celtic ornament, leaves, buds, and flowers. The patterned circles at the top of each tree were inspired by kamon, Japanese family crests.

Stencil design is the art of creating through absence. It requires the artist to think with a pared-down simplicity in order to create the layered coloured cutouts. It was also a quick and inexpensive way to decorate walls. Each card for this part of the scheme has the black outline of its corresponding tree stencilled onto it as a guide. Traces of paint on the card, as well as extant coloured design drawings, indicate Mackintosh employed a dark palette of strong, vibrant colours.

Credit Line/Donor

Purchased 1984

ID Number

E.1984.32.5

Location

In storage