This interesting watercolour botanical study is typical of the work of the Scottish artist, Mary Arbuckle Newbery Sturrock (1892 - 1985).
Mary Sturrock was the daughter of the celebrated director of the Glasgow School of Art, Francis 'Fra' Newbury, who had much influence on the development of the Glasgow Boys style.
Along with Cecil Walton (daughter of the Glasgow painter E.A Walton), Mary was a founding member of the Edinburgh Group of painters after WWI. There is a wonderful painting of her, shown relaxing in a garden with the artist Eric Robertson, now in the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. Another attractive portrait of her holding a tree peony painted by Robertson, whom it seems was rather besotted by her, is in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
After her marriage to the painter, Alick Riddell Sturrock (1885-1953), she moved back to the West of Scotland, to a house and studio in Gatehouse of Fleet, Kirkcudbright.
Mary Sturrock did many beautiful botanical studies. This fine one, with its large exotic red flowers, was done in Madeira. It is signed and titled in light pencil to the bottom left (as photographed).
Her stylised signature is very much influenced by the type of lettering used by her friend, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Indeed, it was Mary's father who commissioned Mackintosh to design one of his largest projects, the Glasgow School of Art Building on Renfrew Street (sadly much of it was destroyed in a horrific fire in 2014).
Mary was a frequent visitor to the Mackintoshes' house when they lived in Glasgow and before they left the city in 1913. Mary was convalescing from an illness in Walberswick while the Mackintoshes were staying in the Suffolk village in 1914, and she watched Mackintosh making some of his delicate watercolour flower drawings. When painting outside directly from nature, Sturrock would teach him the botanical names of many of the flowers they were studying together.
Living to a ripe old age, Mary was often approached by Mackintosh biographers for her personal reminiscences of her time spent with the artist.
With her Mackintosh and Glasgow connections - when works by Mary Sturrock come up for sale at prominent auction houses, such as Bonhams, Edinburgh and at Christie's in London - they often attract keen interest and high prices.
My work is a fair price for a work by this interesting artist, and it is certainly a fine decorative piece for an early 20th-century-inspired interior. Looks great if you have a collection of Moorcroft ceramics - and indeed this work looks rather like the type of blousy flowers that you might find decorating Moorcroft pottery.
My watercolour is painted onto a buff-coloured prepared paper and it is in good condition with no issues. It has been painted onto quite fine paper - which has caused a slight rippling to the sheet, but it is certainly not so evident or distracting when the picture is on display. It is certainly exaggerated in my photographs - rest assured!
It is well presented in a clean, cream-coloured mount and a nice gold-glazed frame. It is ready to be just hung straight on your wall.
Dimensions: image size is 43 x 29 cm. The frame size is 64 x 49 cm.
Probably limited to postage only in the UK.