LECTURES | SCOTTISH WOMEN ARTISTS AT THE VICTORIAN SOCIETY

We're delighted to see that this year's Victorian Society Spring Lecture Series features Scottish women artists.

PHEOBE ANNA TRAQUAIR by DR ELIZABETH CUMMING

‘A woman the size of a fly’: Louis Davis’s 1902 comment to his friend Robert Lorimer gives no idea of the sheer ambition and many achievements of Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852–1936). Born and educated in Ireland, she settled with her Scottish husband to Edinburgh, where she became involved in the city’s social art movement, painting murals in tiny and vast buildings and teaching design from the 1880s. In addition, she produced some of Britain’s most remarkable embroideries, illuminated manuscripts, tooled bookcovers and art enamels, packed with colour and imagination.

Date & Time: 25th February 2026, 6.30-8pm

Location: IN-PERSON at New York University London, 265 Strand, London AND ONLINE

Tickets: £5.50-£11 (depending on membership)

More Info: The Victorian Society website

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH & MARGARET MACDONALD by DR ROBYN CALVERT

For all his fame – or perhaps partly because of it – more myths cling to Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928) and his significance as a designer than to almost any other architect of the Arts and Crafts movement. Many centre on his marriage in 1900 to the artist Margaret Macdonald (1864–1933), with whom he was then collaborating on the design of the Ladies Luncheon Room at Miss Cranston’s Tearooms at Ingram Street, Glasgow. ‘You are half if not three-quarters in all my architectural work’, wrote Mackintosh to his wife, but how true was that?

Date & Time: 4th March 2026, 6.30-8pm

Location: IN-PERSON at New York University London, 265 Strand, London AND ONLINE

Tickets: £5.50-£11 (depending on membership)

More Info: The Victorian Society website