Ada Jane Macnab (1889–1980) known as Chica Macnab, and later as Ada Munro, was a Scottish artist notable as a

wood-engraver Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and pr ...

and painter.

Biography

Macnab was born in the Philippines in the province of

Iloilo Iloilo (), officially the Province of Iloilo ( hil, Kapuoran sang Iloilo; krj, Kapuoran kang Iloilo; tl, Lalawigan ng Iloilo), is a province in the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Its capital is the City of Iloilo, the ...

where her Scottish parents were based while her father worked for the

Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tril ...

. When the family returned to Scotland, Macnab was educated at

Kilmacolm Kilmacolm () is a village and civil parish in the Inverclyde council area, and the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies on the northern slope of the Gryffe Valley, southeast of Greenock and around ...

before studying 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 1922 to 1925. She became a founding member of the Glasgow-based Society of Artist Printers and as soon as she graduated, the Glasgow School employed Macnab to establish and run a class on lithography and colour block printing. Macnab only taught the class for a year, during 1926 and 1927, but her students included Alison Mackenzie. She remained in Glasgow and joined the

Glasgow Society of Lady Artists The Glasgow Society of Lady Artists was founded in 1882 by eight female students of the Glasgow School of Art with the aim of affording due recognition to women in the field of art. It has been described by Jude Burkhauser as "the first residenti ...

. In 1927 Macnab married James Munro, a chemist, and after she started to raise a family appears to have put her artistic career on hold. After 1967 she returned to painting and exhibited several oil paintings as Ada Munro. Her brother was also an artist, the painter and printmaker

Iain Macnab Iain Macnab of Barachastlain (21 October 1890 – 24 December 1967) was a Scottish wood-engraver and painter. As a prominent teacher he was influential in the development of the British school of wood-engraving. His pictures are noted for cl ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macnab, Chica 1889 births 1980 deaths 20th-century British printmakers 20th-century engravers 20th-century Scottish painters 20th-century Scottish women artists Academics of the Glasgow School of Art Alumni of the Glasgow School of Art Artists from Glasgow Artists from Iloilo Scottish women painters Scottish wood engravers Sibling artists Women engravers British expatriates in the Philippines Glasgow Society of Women Artists member