The Mackintosh Festival returns for a fifth year

The Mackintosh Festival presents a month-long programme of arts and cultural events to celebrate the life of Charles Rennie Mackintosh!

Article Source: The Mackintosh Festival
Last Updated: 13 September 2016 9:13

Now in its fifth year, The Mackintosh Festival, organised every October by Glasgow Mackintosh, presents a month-long programme of arts and cultural events to celebrate the life of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow’s most famous architect, designer and artist.

With over 100k people attending the festival last year, this year’s programme features over 40 events, many of which are free, with key events celebrating the Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design 2016.

This year’s highlights include:
‘Mackintosh the Innovator’: to celebrate the Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design and in conjunction with partners at Event Scotland and Wireframe Immersive, Glasgow Mackintosh have created ‘Mackintosh the Innovator’ a 3D experience that will allow users to design and interact with a Mackintosh space. Visitors will be invited to stand ‘beside’ Mackintosh and see how his design perspective would be applied today. The events will take place every weekend during the festival in St Enoch Centre.

Visitors will get the chance to discover a new Mackintosh venue - The Mackintosh Club in Helensburgh. Designed in 1894 by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the building, in the town’s Sinclair Street, was originally The Conservative Club and until recently belonged to a retailer. It was recently purchased by Bruce & Nicola Jamieson who will be restoring it to its former glory. They have opened a public gallery dedicated to The Glasgow Four which will run during the festival as well as talks and tours of the building.

The Hill House in Helensburgh will show an exhibition by Arts and Crafts artist, Henry Taylor Wyse. ‘Artist, Teacher & Craftsman’, running in parallel with an exhibition of pots at the Edinburgh Museum. Wyse was an influential teacher of art and his grandsons have lent material and work by him which includes: watercolours, family tree, landscape portraits, pots, books and leaflets.

This October is the 20th anniversary of House for an Art Lover and there are a host of events taking place at the House during the month, including: an Afternoon in Song; Home to Home – a tour of the House; Mackintosh Queen’s Cross and The Hill House; a range of art masterclasses and Free House – where you can celebrate their 20th birthday with kids activities and free tours of the house.

Twenty years ago, Elisabeth Viguie Culshaw stencilled the newly built House for an Art Lover with large Glasgow Style Roses designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. For this year’s festival, Elisabeth will be getting her rose stencils out of storage to create a carpet of roses outside some of the Mackintosh venues with the help of the public. The workshops will take place at: House for an Art Lover; Mackintosh Queen’s Cross; The Hill House; The Lighthouse and in St Enoch Centre and participants are invited to learn to stencil a rose and make their mark as a true Glasgow artist for the day.

Mackintosh Queen’s Cross, Mackintosh’s only built Church, have a varied programme of events including: artist Avril Paton, who will be their artist in residence and will paint a piano to celebrate Glasgow Piano City throughout the month; visitors can also see her work The Art School; the popular Lids Open Day returns; an exhibition of architectural artwork by Minty Sainsbury; talks on architecture and design by Michael Davis and Will Mitchell; an evening of piano and violin; a guitar recital and the Church’s annual puppet show Gruff: a new take on the classic tale of The Billy Goats Gruff – great fun for all the family!

The Glasgow School of Art will host ‘Disappearing Glasgow’ by photographer and filmmaker Chris Leslie; there will be talks on the ‘State of the Mack’ by The Mack Restoration Team; Peter Trowles, the School’s Mackintosh Curator, reflects on some new discoveries about the building’s history unearthed following recent research for Mackintosh’s Masterwork; the GSA Digital Design Studio have created a digital re-imagining of the Mack and GSA archivist, Susannah Waters, will talk about Mackintosh’s Student Days and give visitors the rare opportunity to see original sketches and watercolours created by Mackintosh during this period. The GSA Walking tours and Mackintosh at the GSA tours will run throughout the festival.

The Lighthouse will host award-winning artist’s Kathy Hinde’s musical flock of ‘Luminous Birds’ to the Mackintosh Tower; there are guided tours and self-led trails of the building; the chance to vote for your most influential Scottish designer on the Design Tree and the Mackintosh Film Series in the Mackintosh Centre which will be showing Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1965) and Mackintosh, directed by Murray Grigor (1968).

Festival goers can enjoy tours of The Mackintosh House at The Hunterian and The Glasgow Art Club which is also hosting Aye Mac – a Mackintosh-inspired exhibition of work by contemporary artists in Glasgow.

Kelvingrove; Glasgow Museums Resource Centre and Scotland Street School Museum invite families and young Mackintosh fans to be inspired by Mackintosh at their free workshops.

Festival partners include: The Glad Café who will show an exhibition of work by furniture designer, Simon Harlow and a talk: Working in the Shavings of Mackintosh; Glasgow Women’s Library will host their Glasgow Girls of Garnethill walking tour and Willow Tea Rooms, Buchanan Street have created a walking tour around the city centre on the history of tearooms in Glasgow, the amazing stories behind the buildings, the architecture and the innovation which led to the success of the partnership with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Kate Cranston. The Big Mack Dinearound is back for a third year and features a range of special offers to celebrate the Festival at some of the city’s best restaurants.