May Matthews
Managing Director, Scotland
The Tannahill Jones Collection
Lot 42AR
Mary 'May' Reid(British, 1897-1986)Night and Day (1920)
11 October 2023, 14:00 BST
EdinburghSold for £15,360 inc. premium
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Leo Webster
Specialist
Harriet Stubbs
Cataloguer
Mary 'May' Reid (British, 1897-1986)
Night and Day (1920)
oil on canvas
163 x 102cm (64 3/16 x 40 3/16in).
The reverse of the canvas is also painted with a scene of women bathing in a landscape.
oil on canvas
163 x 102cm (64 3/16 x 40 3/16in).
The reverse of the canvas is also painted with a scene of women bathing in a landscape.
Footnotes
A label on the reverse reads:
MAY REID 4 The Oriels, 31 Mt Stuart St, Shawlands, Glasgow
Illustrated
J. Burkhauser, Glasgow Girls: Women in Art and Design, 1880-1920, Canongate Books, 2001, p. 216.
The issue of granting women art students access to nude models was a controversial one when Fra Newbery assumed his post as director of the Glasgow School of Art in the late 19th Century. Considered morally degrading by the most conservative, and an absolute necessity by the then liberal, access to live nude models (although in separate classes with chaperones) appears to be firmly established at the School by at least 1903. By 1919, study from nude models was commonplace, but May was one step bolder, by photographically documenting the nudes from her studio to use in completing this graduation piece, Night and Day. Burkhauser refers to Reid's diploma piece as 'a competent large-scale oil study of two winged 'presences' which echoes Pre-Raphaelitism' (J. Burkhauser, Glasgow Girls: Women in Art and Design, 1880-1920, Canongate Books, 2001, p. 214).
Copies of these studio photographs have kindly been provided by the artist's family and reproduced in this catalogue..
A small collection of life sketches that relate to this work can be seen in her student portfolio, lot 39