Mary Seton Fraser Tytler (married name Mary Seton Watts) (1849–1938) was a

symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

craftswoman, designer and social reformer.

Biography

Watts, née Fraser-Tytler, was born on 25 November 1849, in India. She was the daughter of Charles Edward Fraser Tytler of Balnain and Aldourie, who worked for the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. She spent much of her youth in Scotland, where she was raised by her grandparents, and settled in England in the 1860s. Early in 1870 she studied art in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

before enrolling at the

South Kensington School of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

later the same year. During 1872 and 1873 Tytler studied sculpture at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. She initially became known as a portrait painter, and was associated with

Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Margaret Cameron (''née'' Pattle; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian m ...

and the

Freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

community. There she met painter

George Frederic Watts George Frederic Watts (23 February 1817, in London – 1 July 1904) was a British painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical work ...

, and at the age of 36 (he was 69), became his second wife on 20 November 1886 in

Epsom Epsom is the principal town of the Borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Saxon landowner. The ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. Watts was President of the Godalming and District National Union of Women's Suffrage Society (a local branch of the

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...

), and she convened at least one women's suffrage meeting in Compton, Surrey. Watts died at her home, Limnerslease, in Compton on 6 September 1938. Her remains are buried in the Watts Chapel.

Work

After her marriage, Watts largely worked in the fields of

Celt The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient ...

ic and

Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) The Modern Style is a style of architecture, art, and design that first emerged in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom in the mid-1880s. It is the first Art Nouveau style worldwide, and it represents the evolution of th ...

bas-reliefs,

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

metalwork Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...

, and textiles. She co-founded the

Compton Potters' Arts Guild The Compton Potters' Arts Guild was an art pottery, founded by and based at the Surrey home of Scottish artist, Mary Fraser Tytler. Background A follower of the Home Arts and Industries Association, set up by Earl Brownlow in 1885 to encoura ...

and the Arts & Crafts Guild in

Compton Compton may refer to: Places Canada * Compton (electoral district), a former Quebec federal electoral district * Compton (provincial electoral district), a former Quebec provincial electoral district now part of Mégantic-Compton * Compton, Que ...

, Surrey. She designed, built, and maintained the

Watts Mortuary Chapel The Watts Cemetery Chapel or Watts Mortuary Chapel is a chapel in an Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) version of Celtic Revival in the village cemetery of Compton in Surrey. While the overall architectural structure is loosely Romanesque ...

in Compton (1895–1904); and had built and maintained the

Watts Gallery Watts Gallery – Artists' Village is an art gallery in the village of Compton, near Guildford in Surrey. It is dedicated to the work of the Victorian-era painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts. The gallery has been Grade II* listed on th ...

(1903–04) for the preservation of her husband's work. Watts exhibited her work at The Woman's Building at the 1893

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

in Chicago, Illinois. Watts, through the

Home Arts and Industries Association The Home Arts and Industries Association was part of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain. It was founded in 1884 by Eglantyne Louisa Jebb, mother of Save the Children founders, Dorothy and Eglantyne Jebb and Louisa Wilkins who helped start t ...

(HAIA), worked to create employment for rural communities through the preservation of handicrafts. During the execution of the Watts Mortuary Chapel, Watts trained workers in clay modelling, an initiative that eventually led to the establishment of the Compton Potters' Guild in 1899. She was a firm believer in the idea that anyone given the opportunity could produce things of beauty and that everyone should have a craft within which they could express themselves creatively. She supported the revival of the Celtic style, the indigenous artistic expression of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. In 1899, she was asked to design rugs in this style for the carpet company Alexander Morton & Co of Darvel, Liberty's main producer of furnishing fabrics. In cooperation with the Congested Districts Board, Morton had established a workshop in

Donegal Donegal may refer to: County Donegal, Ireland * County Donegal, a county in the Republic of Ireland, part of the province of Ulster * Donegal (town), a town in County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland * Donegal Bay, an inlet in the northwest of Ireland b ...

, Ireland, to employ local women who had little opportunity to earn a livelihood. Watts pioneered Liberty's Celtic style, with much of the imagery for the

Celtic Revival The Celtic Revival (also referred to as the Celtic Twilight) is a variety of movements and trends in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries that see a renewed interest in aspects of Celtic culture. Artists and writers drew on the traditions of Gael ...

carpets, book-bindings, metalwork, and textiles for Liberty & Co. being based on her earlier designs at the Watts Mortuary Chapel. Later in life, Watts wrote ''The Word in the Pattern'' (1905), which details the use of symbols in the Watts Mortuary Chapel, and completed a three-volume biography of her husband, ''Annals of an Artist's Life'' (1912).

Watts Mortuary Chapel

Image:Wattscemeterychapel.jpg, Watts Mortuary Chapel Image:Wattschapel-4At8-0674.jpg, Chapel, showing in foreground terracotta grave marker made in the Compton pottery Image:watts mortuary chapel door 1.jpg, The door File:Wattschapel-4At8-0679.jpg, Ceiling apex File:Wattschapel-4At8-0680.jpg, Embrasure & "altar" File:Wattschapel-4At8-0688.jpg, Tree of Life & Seraphs File:Wattschapel-4At8-0671.jpg, Showing campanile

References

Sources

*Barbara Coffey Bryant, "Watts, George Frederic (1817–1904)", ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 200
accessed 30 Dec 2006
*Veronica Franklin Gould, ''Mary Seton Watts – Unsung Heroine of the Art Nouveau'' (1998)

External links