The House for an Art Lover Collection
All the images below are available to buy as high quality prints and are available in 2 sizes. Click on an image to purchase.
Gesso No. 5
Gesso No. 8
Gesso No. 13
Gesso No. 12
Gesso No. 11
Gesso No. 9
Gesso No. 16
Gesso No. 15
Gesso No. 14
This series of 24 Gesso panels by Dai and Jenny Vaughan are in the Dining Room of the House for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow.
They were started in 1989 and completed in 1996.
The House was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald in 1901 for a competition in Vienna, and although they didn’t win, due to some of their drawings being too late for the deadline, the judges realised that the submission by the Mackintoshes would undoubtedly have won if all their drawings had been received in time.
They were therefore given a special prize as well as their submission being printed in a beautiful portfolio, which went all over the world and established their fame as pioneers of the Modern Movement in art and architecture.
As nothing that Mackintosh and Margaret ever did was simply decoration it was accepted that there must be a theme to the series of panels. Generally, their work was inspired by ancient Celtic myths and legends, and by tales of spiritual enlightenment.
Therefore, Dai and Jenny decided to base their work on The Story of the Rose, which is basically a love story culminating in a mystic marriage. The rose, it should be remembered, is in the West as the lotus is in the East. The theme feels right, as the turn of the century was a time of great interest in spiritual matters, giving rise to esoteric societies such as Theosophy and Rosicrucianism.
These gesso panels are therefore interpretations of the designs in the original perspective drawings and are set at frieze height into dark oak panelling.
