Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Architect, Artist, Icon

by John McKean, Colin Baxter (Photographer)

Architect, painter, furniture designer and graphic artist, Charles Rennie Mackintosh possessed a kaleidoscopic talent. This fresh appraisal of Mackintosh is uniquely illustrated with cotemporary photographs of Colin Baxter along with many archive images. It forms an authentic overview of the man and his achievements both within the context of his personal life and times, and how his work is viewed today.

Genres: Art, History, Architecture

160 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1998

About the author

John McKean is an academic and art critic, and was a Professor of Architecture at the University of Brighton.

Reviews

[Sula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why does the author like rhetorical questions so much?

[Andrew Ives · Rating 4 out of 5]

This large format hardback is laid out rather beautifully, hinting at CRM style in itself with the font and white space. The photographs are particularly useful and well-taken, while the surrounding text does tend to wax lyrical a little too much, too often. I think my main criticism, if indeed it is one, is that the short chapters are arranged in a not-particularly-chronological order, with certain designs gathered together into certain groups for each chapter. Whilst this is not at all awkward from an art and design viewpoint, it does feel a bit meandering from a biographical viewpoint. All told, I quite enjoyed this book and CRM has risen massively in my esteem. His life story is rather a sad one though, of a massive talent, misunderstood and underused (except in Austria), apparently because he was a fairly odd sort of bloke to get along with, as imaginative people might be expected to be, which is such a shame. Towns could've looked more interesting if some more of his architectural designs had been built throughout the UK. 4.25/5

[Vanlilith]

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[Nan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite artist in every sense of the word.