The Glasgow Girls: Rediscovering a Remarkable Generation
The Glasgow Girls occupy a fascinating place within the story of Scottish art. Working in Glasgow in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, artists including Bessie MacNicol, Jessie M. King, Norah Neilson Gray, Eleanor Allen Moore and Stansmore Dean are a selection of artists who helped create a distinctive visual language that was modern, decorative and unmistakably international.
For me, their work is particularly compelling because it sits at the intersection of art, design and collecting. These artists were not simply responding to the Glasgow Boys or working in their shadow; they developed ambitious practices of their own, moving between painting, illustration, textiles, interiors and the decorative arts. Their work also reflects the extraordinary cultural energy of Glasgow at the time, when the city was increasingly connected to wider European artistic movements.
Through JDSM, I have been involved in sourcing works for forthcoming exhibitions devoted to this remarkable generation of artists. This has involved researching privately held works, establishing provenance and ownership, identifying important examples and working with collectors to bring works to light that have often remained largely unseen outside private collections.
It is an aspect of art advisory that I particularly enjoy: the process of discovery. Some of the most interesting works are not necessarily those that are regularly appearing on the market, but those that have been carefully preserved in family collections for decades. Finding these works, understanding their significance and helping to place them within a wider exhibition or collecting context can be immensely rewarding.
The renewed interest in the Glasgow Girls reflects a broader reassessment of the contribution of women artists to British modernism. I am delighted to be contributing, in a small way, to that process by helping to bring important works back into public view and into the conversation around Scottish art.
For JDSM, this is at the heart of art advisory: combining scholarship, market knowledge and relationships with collectors to uncover works that deserve to be seen, understood and appreciated anew.
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