Mackintosh Italian Job

A little known sketchbook used by the world famous Glasgow architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh on a tour of Italy has now been opened up for use online at vads.ac.uk.

The sketchbook, which is today held in the Glasgow School of Art archive, was taken by Charles Rennie Mackintosh on his tour of Italy, France and Belgium in 1891 as the recipient of the Alexander Thomson Travelling Studentship.

It provides a unique insight into the architect's formative years and shows Mackintosh as a young architect with a mind of his own.  Mackintosh ignored the strict stipulations of the grant body which made his trip possible, and instead pursued his desire to learn more about Renaissance architecture.

In an accompanying diary he dismisses the attractions of much-celebrated Florence and Mantua, and ignores much of the remit for the journey laid down by the studentship, which was created to encourage the study of classical art.

Using funding granted by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Glasgow School of Art's Architectural Librarian, David Buri, and former Fine Art librarian and art historian, George Rawson, spent 3 years examining each sketch and notation made by Mackintosh and, on a series of trips to Italy, tracked down and photographed the sources of each drawing, ranging from building façades to ornamentation and interior details.

Pages from Mackintosh's sketchbook are now available to view online at VADS.  For more information about the project, see: vads.ac.uk/collections/MAC

The sketchbook is also available via a purpose-built website at: http://www.gsa.ac.uk/mackintoshsketchbook/

Notes to Editors

VADS is the online resource for visual arts.  It currently provides access to over 100,000 images from art and design collections held in universities, colleges, museums, libraries and archives throughout the UK.   The image resources are free and copyright cleared for use in UK Higher and Further Education and personal research.

VADS is based within the University College for the Creative Arts at Farnham.