Charles Rennie Mackintosh Tea Rooms
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of objects relating to tearooms created by architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. There are approximately 3,500 items, which date from 1885 to 1990. This collection comprises panelling and doors, fireplaces, light fittings, stained and leaded glass, repoussé metalwork, printed material and designs. The range of furniture includes tables and chairs, and racks, pegs and stands for umbrellas, hats and coats. The collection also contains tableware, such as crockery and cutlery, and branded merchandise, menu cards and other ephemera. Mackintosh’s stylistic development between 1896 and 1911 can be charted through the evolution of his tearoom designs for the entrepreneur Miss Catherine Cranston. The largest part of the collection relates to her four Glasgow tearooms – Ingram Street (opened 1886), Buchanan Street (opened about 1896–7), Argyle Street (opened about 1897) and the Willow Tearooms on Sauchiehall Street (opened 1903). These tearooms also demonstrate her patronage of other Glasgow Style artists – George Walton, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, Frances Macdonald and Jessie Marion King. Miss Cranston was Mackintosh’s greatest patron. She founded her business on good quality food, good service and the unique environment of the artistic tearoom.
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