ELIZABETH (BESSIE) MACNICOL (SCOTTISH 1869-1904)

ELIZABETH (BESSIE) MACNICOL (SCOTTISH 1869-1904) PHYLLIS WITH A BOUQUET OF FLOWERSsigned B. MacNichol lower right oil on panel23 x 17.5cm; 9 x 7in 38.5 x 32cm; 15 1/4 x 12 1/2in (framed)Property from a Distinguished Private CollectionProvenanceRichard Green Gallery, LondonPurchased from the above by the present owner in 1999MacNicol was a student at the Glasgow School of Art (1887-1893) under Francis Henry Newbery, who encouraged her to travel to Paris to study at the more liberal Académie Colarossi where women were permitted to study alongside men. MacNichol was thus one of the first wave of female artists from Britain to study in France. Frustrated by the chauvinistic attitudes she encountered there, however, she soon returned to Scotland where she exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Glasgow Institute. In 1896 she stayed in the artists' colony in the fishing village of Kirkcudbright in Galloway on the Solway Firth, where she painted her striking portrait of Edward Atkinson Hornel (collection of Broughton House, Kircudbright), one of the Glasgow Boys, and the colony's leading proponent. The same year she exhibited at the Munich Secession. She married Alexander Frew, a doctor and fellow artist, in 1899 and set up a large studio at their home in Glasgow, but died in the later stages of pregnancy in 1904. Now counted as one of the fabled 'Glasgow Girls', her work is all too little known as much was destroyed after her death.