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Pipe Organ

The centrepiece of the Centre Hall is a concert pipe organ constructed and installed by Lewis & Co. The organ was originally commissioned as part of the Glasgow International Exhibition, held in Kelvingrove Park in 1901. The organ was installed in the concert hall of the exhibition, which was capable of seating 3,000 people.

The Centre Hall of the then newly completed Art Gallery and Museum was intended from the beginning to be a space in which to hold concerts. When the 1901 exhibition ended, a Councillor urged the Glasgow Corporation (now Glasgow Council) to purchase the organ, stating that without it, "the art gallery would be a body without a soul". Purchase price and installation costs were met from the surplus exhibition proceeds, and the organ was installed in the Centre Hall by Lewis and Co. The present case front in walnut with non-functional display pipes was commissioned at this time from John W. Simpson. Simpson was the senior partner of Simpson & Milner Allen, architects of the gallery building.

Bessie MacNicol

Bessie MacNicol was a Scotttish artist, active at the turn of the 20th century. She was born at 352 St Vincent Street, Glasgow on 15 July 1869, and died on 4 June 1904. She was the elder of twin girls and the fourth child born to Peter MacNicol (1839–1903), schoolmaster and later head of Anderston burgh school, and his wife, Mary Ann Matthews (1839–1903)

Education

Studied at GSA between 1887 and 1892, under Fra Newberry. She attended his summer school in Lundin Links in Fife, and he encouraged MacNicol to continue her studies in Paris (Académie Colarossi?) (ibid)

Career

She exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1893. She exhibited 'A French Girl' in 1895, on her return from Paris at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. [It's in a private collection, southeby's is credited with the book fig.] (ibid) 1896 her first studio at 175 St Vincent Street, Glasgow; and the first time she visited Kirkcudbright and met Hornel (ibid, p194). 1897 she exhibited her portrait of Hornel at the Glasgow Institute, but did not receive favourable reviews (ibid, p194). A solo show at Stephen Goodens Art Rooms in 1899. MORE...

Marriage

MacNicol married Alexander Frew in 1899. Frew was a gynaecologist and accomplished painter. He had given up medical practice to concentrate on painting, however after their marriage he returned to medical practice. The couple moved to a house that had been D.Y. Cameron's, allowing MacNicol more studio space which increased the scale of her paintings (ibid, p195).

Death

On 4 June 1904 she died while pregnant with her first child (ibid, p197). Her death was lamented by Percy Bate "how great was the bereavement that the art of Scotland has sustained by her untimely end' (Bate, cited by Tanner, in Burkhauser, p193).

References

Refs

Bessie MacNicol - youtube video not available in scotland though. Youtube

Spanish Wikipedia entry

Bate, Percy, 'In Memoriam: Bessie MacNicol', Scottish Art and Letters, 1904. Vol. III, No. 3, p198

Burkhauser, J., 1990. Glasgow Girls: Women in Art and Design 1880 - 1920. Canongate:Edinburgh (pp193-199) - ISBN 0862413060

Tanner, A., 2004. ‘MacNicol , Elizabeth [Bessie] (1869–1904)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 31 Dec 2013