Annie french

Sometimes we can learn so much about an artist by the life they leave behind & other times, we have only their life's work to gaze at to try in some way imagine what they must have been like. And this sadly, is very true for Annie French, born in (1872-1975) Glasgow, Scotland, she was a 19th & 20th century painter, etcher and illustrator, who taught ceramic decoration at the Applied Art Studios of the Glasgow School of Art. She was the daughter of a metallurgist. She studied under Fra…

Flora

by Annie French (1872-1965), 'The Flower Maiden' Scottish painter, engraver, illustrator and designer associated with the Glasgow School of Art

Primarily an illustrator of fairy tales and poems, French was a key figure in the ‘Glasgow Style’ movement which emerged in the 1890s and continued in the years before the First World War. French’s style owed much to Aubrey Beardsley and the Pre Raphaelite movements. The date of this work is unknown: while it is similar to works dating from the early 1900s, French continued working in this style for many years thereafter.

Annie French was one of the Glasgow Girls, a group of women artists and designers active in Glasgow at the turn of the 20th century that also included Helen Paxton Brown and Jessie M King, who also illustrated the same fairy-tale subject. This drawing was gifted by the Orcadian artist Stanley Cursiter, while Director of the National Galleries of Scotland (1930–48). At the time, the collection rarely accepted works by living artists and it would be another 17 years before the Gallery of…

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This year I spent a little time doing some research at Chelsea Library in bound copies of the Studio magazine from the early 1900s. As well as finding what I was looking for I also came across a nu…

Annie French (1872-1965) ~ Autumn ~ watercolor and gold ink on paper ~ via Art of Narrative on Facebook

Annie French (1872-1965). Woman and boy. She was a painter, etcher and illustrated who taught ceramic decoration at the Applied Art Studios of the Glasgow School of Art and made many watercolours and pen drawings to illustrate children’s books. Her style was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites , and was described by a Studio critic as having ’individual charm in its highly decorative quality and elegance of design’. She flourished between 1900 and 1925 artist George Wooliscroft Rhead in 1914.