Jessie M. King was one of the finest illustrators and designers of her age, and a leading light of the Glasgow Style. A daughter of the manse from just outside Glasgow, she trained and taught at the Glasgow School of Art, and her delicate, dreamlike pen drawings made her famous across Europe.
A daughter of the manse
Born in 1875 at New Kilpatrick, now Bearsden, on the edge of Glasgow, where her father was the parish minister, King had parents who at first opposed a career in art. They relented, and in 1892 she entered the Glasgow School of Art, then the very heart of the new movement that would become known as the Glasgow Style.
The Glasgow Style
Under the school’s inspiring director Francis Newbery, King became one of the most gifted of the circle around Charles Rennie Mackintosh and ‘The Four’, among the women artists and designers remembered as the ‘Glasgow Girls’. When the foundation stone of Mackintosh’s famous School of Art building was laid, it was King who illuminated the little history placed inside it.
A famous illustrator
From 1899 she taught book decoration and design at the school, while her own career soared. Her intricate, flowing pen-and-ink drawings, full of fairies, flowers and medieval romance, won her a gold medal at the great Turin exhibition of 1902 and made her the foremost book illustrator of the Glasgow movement. She also designed jewellery, bookplates, fabric and pottery, and her work hangs today in Kelvingrove and the Hunterian.
Paris and Kirkcudbright
In 1908 she married the artist E. A. Taylor, and the couple later ran an art school in Paris, where brighter colours transformed her work and influenced the coming Art Deco style. The war brought them home, and from 1915 King settled in the artists’ colony at Kirkcudbright, gathered around the Glasgow Boy E. A. Hornel, where she went on working until her death in 1949.
A Glasgow Girl
One of the brightest of the Glasgow Girls, King took her place in the city’s remarkable culture of art and design, alongside figures such as the writer Catherine Carswell.
Related questions
Who was Jessie M. King?
A Scottish illustrator and designer, one of the leading figures of the Glasgow Style and the Glasgow Girls, famous for her delicate book illustrations.
What was Jessie M. King famous for?
Her intricate, dreamlike pen-and-ink book illustrations, which won her a gold medal at the 1902 Turin exhibition, and her designs for jewellery, fabric and pottery.
What was the Glasgow Style?
A distinctly Scottish form of Art Nouveau that flourished at the Glasgow School of Art around Charles Rennie Mackintosh, to which King was a leading contributor.
Where was Jessie M. King from?
She was born at New Kilpatrick, now Bearsden, just outside Glasgow, and trained and taught at the Glasgow School of Art.