Writing Desk

Designer: Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1869-1928.

1904

48 in. (121.9 cm.) x 32 in. (81.3 cm.) x 16 ½ in. (41.9 cm.)

Wood (probably Kauri pine) painted white

In 1904 Mackintosh was commissioned by Catherine Cranstc her husband to remodel and furnish their house Hous'hill. It, the last domestic commission of any consequence which J Mackintosh received in Glasgow and the development of the style he began here can only be seen in the work at Normam carried 0ut ten years later. [cont. below]

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Included in the commission were two bedrooms, the Blue Bedroom for Mi Cranston and her husband furnished in oak and the White Bedroom, a g room, where all the furniture except two small chairs was painted in whiti Mackintosh had started to paint his bedrooms white in 1898 at Westdel, Glasgow, and he continued to use white in all the bedrooms he designed u 1904. The white paint is usually associated with shapes or decoration imp organic forms - leaves, tendrils, roses and petals. The Hous'hill furniture, however, is predominately linear and geometric inform and decoration. It rationalisation of a process of simplification in Mackintosh's designs for fu which had begun the previous year at The Hill House, Helensburgh.

The contrasting of white pieces against a single black painted item like a c} also stems from The Hill House; this was the last occasion that Mackintosh to paint his furniture white.

As it was not a family bedroom Mackintosh duplicated all the items except writing desk. There are, therefore, two beds, two washstands, etc. In 1933 Hous'hill furniture was sold in auction the White Bedroom pieces divided. furniture exhibited here retains its original painted surface but the other fu from the room has been re-finished. It is extremely rare to find Mackintosh white furniture still in its original condition; all of the white furniture in ki house (now collection Hunterian Art Gallery) and at The Hill House has i repainted and the only other substantial quantity of work still in its originc condition is the group of three pieces designed for the bedroom at Windyhil, collection Glasgow School of Art). — Roger Billcliffe.

References

Spring '84. Exhibition catalogue. London: Fine Art Society, 1984.

Billcliff. Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Complete Furniture, Furniture Designs and Interiors. 1986; pp. 16-17, 161-65,173-175, Nos. 1904.89, 1904. 92, 1904.91,19

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Last modified 13 June 2010