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Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 – 1928) was born in Glasgow. Apprenticed to a firm of architects, his natural talent soon became apparent and he was accepted as a student in the Glasgow School of Art where he fell in love with and married a talented fellow artist, Margaret Macdonald.

His revolutionary designs quickly earned him an international reputation. He did not just design buildings but all the details of their decoration and furnishing. He had a holistic approach to architecture. He pioneered the Modernist movement at the turn of the twentieth century and worked closely with his contemporaries in Central Europe.

The outbreak of the Great War brought the relationship to an abrupt end and when peace returned he found himself outmoded. In 1923 he abandoned his architectural career and went on a painting holiday with his wife Margaret to the Pyrénées Orientales.

The holiday became a permanent stay and for the last four and perhaps the happiest years of his life, he devoted himself to painting, developing a unique personal style of landscape «en pleine air» and today his paintings hang in international collections around the world.