The Meldrum Collection
Material relating to the 1933 Mackintosh Memorial Exhibition at McLellan Galleries, organised by James Meldrum and William Davidson.
About the collection
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) architect, designer and artist
The Meldrum Collection is made up of correspondence, catalogues, photographs, ephemera, newspaper clippings covering period 1933 to 1979, relating to the 1933 Charles Rennie Mackintosh Memorial exhibition.
Following the death of Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh, wife of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, two Glasgow businessmen, James Meldrum and William Davidson, organised a Memorial Exhibition of the Mackintoshes’ work at the McLellan Galleries in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. The exhibition was to last 3 weeks from the 4th to 27th May 1933.
Meldrum’s father, William, who had studied at evening classes alongside Mackintosh at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1880’s, owned a major collection of his work.
The exhibition catalogues, with a foreword written by Jessie Newbery, form part of the Meldrum Collection, donated to the Mitchell Library by Eva Meldrum, widow of James Meldrum.
The catalogues record not only the lenders of items on display, but also are annotated with the names and addresses of the buyers and prices paid for exhibits from the exhibition.
Other items on display at the exhibition included examples of the Mackintosh’s work as watercolourists, furniture designers, workers in stained glass, metal workers and interior decorators, with several plans and other architectural compositions.
The Meldrum Collection includes two sketches by Charles Rennie Mackintosh:
Line drawing of Chapter House, Glasgow Cathedral. October 1888.
Line drawing of Spire of Church, Clydeside, Glasgow. 29 June 1888.
Several photographs inscribed on the reverse by Mackintosh also form part of the collection of 112 items, some of which are of the interiors of Miss Cranston’s Willow Tea Rooms, Sauchiehall Street and Miss Cranston’s Tea House in Ingram Street.
Finding aid
Page from the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Memorial Exhibition Catalogue
Further reading
Online catalogue:
- Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh: memorial exhibition. Glasgow: McLellan Galleries, 1933.
- Tenth anniversary celebrations 1973-1983: Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh: the memorial exhibition 1933: a reconstruction at the Fine Art Society ... 24 August-26 September 1983. Fine Art Society, 1983.
- K. E. Sullivan. The life, times and work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Caxton, 2000.
- Glasgow's hidden treasure: Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Ingram Street tearooms. Glasgow: Glasgow Museums, 2004.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. "Charles Rennie Macintosh".
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