Annie French (6 February 1872 – 27 January 1965) was a Scottish painter, engraver, illustrator, and designer associated with the

Glasgow School The Glasgow School was a circle of influential artists and designers that began to coalesce in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1870s, and flourished from the 1890s to around 1910. Representative groups included The Four (also known as the Spook School ...

Biography

French was a student of

Jean Delville Jean Delville (19 January 1867 – 19 January 1953) was a Belgian people, Belgian symbolist painter, author, poet, polemicist, teacher, and Theosophist. Delville was the leading exponent of the Belgian Idealist movement in art during the 1890s. ...

and

Fra Newbery Francis Henry Newbery or Fra Newbery (15 May 1855 – 18 December 1946) was a painter and art educationist, best known as director of the Glasgow School of Art between 1885 and 1917. Under his leadership the School developed an international ...

at the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and ...

from 1896 to 1902. She shared a studio with artist Bessie Young and fellow Glasgow School painter Jane Younger from 1906 to 1914. She returned to the Glasgow School to teach ceramic decoration from 1909 to 1912. She published books of black and white illustration in the style of Beardsley. ''The Picture Book'' and ''The Plumed Hat'' were republished in elite art publications in 1906 and 1900 respectively. French was married to painter, engraver, and illustrator George Woolliscroft Rhead from 1914 until his death in 1920. She died at

St Helier St Helier (; Jèrriais: ; french: Saint-Hélier) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. St Helier has a population of 35,822 – over one-third of the total population of Jersey – ...

on the island of

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...

on 25 January 1965.Ailsa Tanner, ‘Glasgow Girls (act. 1880–1920)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 201
accessed 17 April 2017
/ref> Summer_Time_by_Miss_Annie_French

Art

As a member of a group of designers and artists known as the Glasgow Girls, French was best known for

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

illustrations in the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

style. Her influences included

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Woodblock printing in Japan, Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He ...

Jessie M. King Jessie Marion King (20 March 1875 – 3 August 1949) was a Scottish illustrator known for her illustrated children's books. She also designed bookplates, jewellery and fabric, and painted pottery. King was one of the artists known as the Glas ...

, and

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Charles Rennie Mackintosh (7 June 1868 – 10 December 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdo ...

. French's work was exhibited at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

and published in '' The Studio''. The_Garland_by_Annie_French

References

External links

The Annie French Collection
- collection of business papers of Annie French * {{DEFAULTSORT:French, Annie 1872 births 1965 deaths 19th-century Scottish painters 19th-century Scottish women artists 20th-century British printmakers 20th-century Scottish painters 20th-century Scottish women artists Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art Artists from Glasgow Art Nouveau painters Glasgow School People from Govan Scottish designers Scottish engravers Scottish illustrators Scottish women painters Women engravers 20th-century engravers