![]() ![]() The overall vertical shape of the inscription at left complements the tall, slender format of the poster and the elongated figures, but it tugs at the composition’s symmetry. While the illustration in this poster is well executed, the lettering in the cartouche below feels awkward and unsteady, particularly the “S” and “R.” Yet, an effort to relate lettering to illustration is revealed in the exaggerated lengths of the crossbars of the uppercase “E” and “F” and the bottom stroke of the “L” in Glasgow, which extends under adjacent letters “A” and “S.” The use of sinuous, abstracted figures and organic plant and floral forms connected the work of The Four with the European Art Nouveau movement and found favor across progressive arts publications and among the Vienna Secessionists.” ![]() The Glasgow Institute poster, as summarized in the exhibition labels, features two androgynous figures that “subvert conventional gender distinctions and imbue the composition with mystical, otherworldly overtones. So close were they, in fact, that Frances and McNair married in 1899 and Margaret and Mackintosh in 1900. The three, along with Mackintosh, were students at the Glasgow School of Art where they were dubbed “The Four” because of their close work on designs for furniture, metalwork, and illustration. The Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts was a collaboration between the Macdonald sisters and McNair. Courtesy Architecture and Design Collection, Museum of Modern Art. ![]() ![]() 1896, lithograph, by Margaret Macdonald, Frances Macdonald, and J. “The Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts,” c. Image and text grew more synonymous and symbolism inched out representation. Illustration and lettering shifted away from art nouveau’s complex curvilinear forms derived from nature, towards more simplified geometric shapes and patterns. The cozy 14 x 12.5-foot gallery permitted close examination of such details and a chance to compare the four 3-color lithographs, with focus on the progressive simplification of the human figure and stylization of letterforms. In order to achieve dramatic new heights, these posters, which range from six to eight feet tall, had to be printed in several sections. Like old friends, these posters continued the artistic exchange begun by their designers over a century ago.Īs the 1890s leaned into the 20 th century, these six designers, and their contemporaries in Glasgow and Vienna, experimented with dynamic new approaches to illustration, lettering, and scale. “We thought this a perfect opportunity to let these four unique graphic posters ‘speak’ to each other,” said Arièle Dionne-Krosnick, architecture and design curatorial assistant, who organized the installation. In an intimate cul-de-sac overlooking the museum’s vast second floor gallery, two Vienna Secession exhibition posters by founding members Alfred Roller and Koloman Moser hung alongside Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s The Scottish Musical Review and a recent museum acquisition, The Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts by sisters Margaret and Frances Macdonald, and J. Take this mighty month-long pop-up installation of four posters at MoMA that I just happened to stumble upon. Courtesy Architecture and Design Collection, Museum of Modern Art.Īn exhibition doesn’t have to be a big blockbuster to be a smash hit. This picture of the posters by "The Four" in the gallery shows the proportional relationship between the two. ![]()
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