Charles Rennie Mackintosh is established in the Scottish iconography as an architect of originality, a designer of genius and a painter of exceptional quality. He is, however, an enigma as a man.
This Victorian Glaswegian made his way through the art scene at the end of the nineteenth century to become a famous figure in his own time and a legend today. He managed to annoy, offend and enrage the architectural establishment of his day to such an extent that he turned his back on his own city and went willingly into exile to England, and finally to France.
In all of this, he was unfailingly supported by a fellow-artist and co-worker, Margaret Macdonald. Their love story through challenging times is one of the great sagas of art history.
This is the life of an ordinary Glasgow man with extraordinary talent, a great love story with personal complications, professional conflicts, triumphs and disasters, and an engulfing tragic ending.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh can be described as the greatest-ever Scottish architect, a water colourist of genius or a capricious interior designer with a flair for unstable furniture. He is all of these things, but he is also an enigma - an almost impenetrable figure in the history of Scottish art and architecture. John Cairney tells of the working life of Charles Rennie Mackintosh as well as the beautiful love story which tragically ended with his sudden death at the age of 60.
