Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Architect, Artist, Icon

by John McKean, Colin Baxter

This heavily illustrated book focuses on Charles Rennie Mackintosh's decorative arts, interiors, graphics, small objects, drawings, and illustrations. It includes many new and lesser-known images, as well as other classic Mackintosh trademarks.

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.