Changing gender bias one painting at a time - Bessie MacNicol

The Lilac Sunbonnet, by Bessie MacNicol, 1899, oil on canvas, 41 x 30.5 cm

You may have heard of The Glasgow Boys but have you ever heard of the Glasgow Girls?

Katie Hessel (Great Women Artists), The Guerrilla Girls and countless other writers, activists and campaigners have been battling hard to break the gender bias in art history and make work by women artists more visible. The National Galleries of Scotland is also working hard to readdress this imbalance with new acquisitions.

Meet Glasgow Girl Bessie MacNicol

A personal highlight for me is the acquisition of The Lilac Sunbonnet by Bessie MacNicol who was part of the Glasgow Girls group. Born in Glasgow in 1869, she trained at Glasgow School of Art from 1887 until 1892. During this period, GSA was one of the most advanced schools of art and they were particularly supportive of their female staff and students.

MacNicol’s contemporaries included the Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Art Nouveau pioneers and sisters Margaret and Frances Macdonald alongside Katharine Cameron known for her sensitive depictions of flowers, landscapes and book illustrations.

GSA was an outlier at the time - and some corners of the art world are still catching up now. The challenges often faced by women artists means that they have mostly been overlooked and their history is patchy at best. This is why it’s so vital to see National Galleries of Scotland celebrating pioneering female artists like MacNicol whose work is a symphony of light and very rare. Many of her paintings have been sadly lost. You can also see a small oil painting by MacNicol, Portrait of a Lady (‘Phyllis in Town’) and a wonderful watercolour, Three Ladies of Fashion.

See her work at Scottish National Gallery