£8,190
Auction: 11 October 2023 at 11:00 BST
pencil and watercolour, later framed
Provenance: Acquired by William Meldrum, after the Memorial Exhibition 1933
and by descent to his son, James Meldrum
Given to The Glasgow Art Club by Eva Meldrum, widow of James Meldrum, 1984
Note: ‘Plant Studies’, offers a tantalising insight into Mackintosh's design process. Here he considers a cluster of appealingly shaped leaves. In the bottom right we see he has constructed a grid, sketching within it a floral form: pinned for dissection by his designer’s eye which seeks to discover his subject’s recurring natural shapes to extrapolate into pattern.
This sketch, and the other works by Mackintosh in this sale, belonged to James Meldrum, having come from the collection of his father William Meldrum, Mackintosh’s friend and fellow student at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1880s. James Meldrum notably staged the 1933 Memorial Exhibition of Mackintosh’s work in the MacLellan Galleries on Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, along with his friend William Davidson. After James’ death, his widow Eva gifted the vast body of the William Meldrum Collection to the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. The series of works offered here were gifted to the Glasgow Art Club in the 1980s and now appear on the open market for the first time.