Every week for throwback Thursday I write a post about a designer or piece of jewellery from the past. This week Is about an amazing lady from Scotland called Jessie Marion King, if your a young lady and looking for a role model then here she is.
Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.
Born in New Kilpatrick, near Bearsden, Dunbartonshire, she was raised with a strict religious education and being an artist and artistic was discouraged. This discouragement only encouraged her more though and she would hide drawing she had made in school encase her mother tore them up! Finally in 1891, Jessie began to embrace her creativity and began training to be a art teacher at Queen Margaret's College, Glasgow.
It was while studying she became influenced by Glasgow Style, which was a type of Art Nouveau and arts and crafts movement in Glasgow. She became a member of the Glasgow girls, a collective of female artists.
She excelled in her studies, winning awards for her illustrations. Her talents where many and varied including book illustrations, ( which she is most known for) bookbinding, ceramics, book bindings, wallpaper, textiles and of course jewellery.
She graduated in 1899 and was appointed Tutor in Book Decoration and Design at the school of art.
She began to work for Liberty and Co, London in the early 1900's designing wall paper and fabrics. It was these designs which lead her to designing jewellery for Liberty also as part of their range called Cymric.
Her jewellery designs come in two types. There are those which are silver with beautiful enamel on large panels, then there is those made of more precious metals and precious or semi precious stones or pearls and enamel is used for detail.
Jessie never actually made any of her designs instead opting to design then pass on to a Liberty and co jeweller.
Her designs can still be seen the Liberty pattern book.
In 1902, she set off on a study tour of Italy and Germany for a year, viewing the works of one of her favourite artists, Botticelli. In the same year her works her book bindings went on show at the International exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin. The Scottish section was said to have caused a stir at the exhibition organised by Fra Newbury and co organised by designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Jessie won a gold metal award and among the other contributors was a Scottish born artist called Ernest Archibald Taylor. This man would later become her husband.
When she came back from her tour she began a committee member of the Glasgow Society Of Artists. Two years later she joined the Glasgow Society Of Lady Artists and had her first solo exhibition in London's, Bruton Street Gallery and then again in 1907 at the studio of T and R Annan in Glasgow.
In 1909, ten years after accepting to marry E A Taylor she eventually walked down the aisle and never one to be told what to do, she defied convention by keeping her Maiden name instead of becoming Taylor.
Jessie and her new husband moved to Salford after the wedding where, E A Taylor had taken a job designing for the firm George Wragge Ltd. It was while living here the couple had their only child, a daughter named Merle Elspeth.
The family moved again in 1910 to Paris, where Ernest had job working as teacher at Ernest Percyval Tudor- Hart's studio.
The next year the couple started a joint venture and set up their own art teaching school called the Shealing Atelier. They also ran summer schools on the Isle of Arran in Scotland.
With the start of World War I, the family moved back to Scotland and settled in a home Jessie had from before her marriage. They lived there for the rest of their lives, the house is now a B&B.
It was while studying she became influenced by Glasgow Style, which was a type of Art Nouveau and arts and crafts movement in Glasgow. She became a member of the Glasgow girls, a collective of female artists.
She excelled in her studies, winning awards for her illustrations. Her talents where many and varied including book illustrations, ( which she is most known for) bookbinding, ceramics, book bindings, wallpaper, textiles and of course jewellery.
She graduated in 1899 and was appointed Tutor in Book Decoration and Design at the school of art.
She began to work for Liberty and Co, London in the early 1900's designing wall paper and fabrics. It was these designs which lead her to designing jewellery for Liberty also as part of their range called Cymric.
Her jewellery designs come in two types. There are those which are silver with beautiful enamel on large panels, then there is those made of more precious metals and precious or semi precious stones or pearls and enamel is used for detail.
Jessie never actually made any of her designs instead opting to design then pass on to a Liberty and co jeweller.
Her designs can still be seen the Liberty pattern book.
In 1902, she set off on a study tour of Italy and Germany for a year, viewing the works of one of her favourite artists, Botticelli. In the same year her works her book bindings went on show at the International exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin. The Scottish section was said to have caused a stir at the exhibition organised by Fra Newbury and co organised by designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Jessie won a gold metal award and among the other contributors was a Scottish born artist called Ernest Archibald Taylor. This man would later become her husband.
When she came back from her tour she began a committee member of the Glasgow Society Of Artists. Two years later she joined the Glasgow Society Of Lady Artists and had her first solo exhibition in London's, Bruton Street Gallery and then again in 1907 at the studio of T and R Annan in Glasgow.
In 1909, ten years after accepting to marry E A Taylor she eventually walked down the aisle and never one to be told what to do, she defied convention by keeping her Maiden name instead of becoming Taylor.
Jessie and her new husband moved to Salford after the wedding where, E A Taylor had taken a job designing for the firm George Wragge Ltd. It was while living here the couple had their only child, a daughter named Merle Elspeth.
The family moved again in 1910 to Paris, where Ernest had job working as teacher at Ernest Percyval Tudor- Hart's studio.
The next year the couple started a joint venture and set up their own art teaching school called the Shealing Atelier. They also ran summer schools on the Isle of Arran in Scotland.
With the start of World War I, the family moved back to Scotland and settled in a home Jessie had from before her marriage. They lived there for the rest of their lives, the house is now a B&B.
Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.
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