Glasgow Style was an idiosyncratic version of Art Nouveau peculiar to Glasgow designers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sweeping curves and taut lines were combined with stylised motifs of roses, foliage, butterflies and heart motifs. Contrasting lines of poetry in simplified lettering were also sometimes included. Furniture, metalwork, ceramics, stained glass and embroidery were all produced in this style.

The embroidery was particularly successful, winning wide acclaim through exhibitions in Glasgow, 1901; Turin, 1902; Paris and Lyons in 1914; and through illustrated articles in journals such as The Studio. It is closely associated with Jessie Newbery, who established an innovative Embroidery Department at Glasgow School of Art in 1894. Her designs were invariably worked in appliqué, the method of applying fabric to a ground fabric to create a design, or in simple stitches in crewel wool or silk threads on linen in soft shades of green, pink and violet. In addition beads were often incorporated. These designs were for practical items such as cushions, curtains and bedspreads for domestic interiors, or embroidered collars and belts for her own and her daughters’ aesthetic clothes. Her distinctive style of dress was much emulated by students and friends.

Her most talented student, who succeeded her, was Ann Macbeth, who introduced decorative figure panels embroidered on silk satin in lustrous silk threads. These figures are romantic and stylised but not to the same extent as the attenuated figures worked by Margaret Macdonald for interiors designed by her husband Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The teaching of Newbery and Macbeth had a profound influence on embroidery, particularly through their Saturday classes for teachers, and although by 1920 interest in the Glasgow Style had diminished, many Glasgow Style examples worked at these classes can still be found in homes throughout the west of Scotland.

Books and Articles
Arthur, Liz (ed), The Unbroken Thread: A Century of Embroidery & Weaving at Glasgow School of Art (Glasgow: Glasgow School of Art, 1994)

Burkhauser, Jude (ed), Glasgow Girls: Women in Art and Design 1880-1920 (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1990)

Cumming, Elizabeth (ed), Glasgow 1900, Art & Design (Zwolle: Waanders Publishing Co, 1993)

Macfarlane, Fiona and Arthur, Elizabeth, Glasgow School of Art Embroidery 1894-1920 (Glasgow: Glasgow Museums & Art Galleries, 1980)

Swain, Margaret, 'Mrs Newbery's Dress', Costume No 12(1978)

Swain, Margaret, Scottish Embroidery: Medieval to Modern (London: Batsford, 1986)