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WHEN as a young designer Jessie M King won a gold medal at the International Exhibition for Decorative Art in Turin in 1902, she was also presented with a certificate. But on it the printing indicated the prize was to be awarded to "Signor ...." name to be supplied in the blank space. So her certificate had to be made out to "Signor Jessie Marion King". There was no provision for a Signora winning a prize. It was not that Italy was particularly backward in such things. It was just that Scotland was rather advanced.
Jessie King and Margaret Macdonald, ten years her senior who also made a great impression at the same exhibition, were part of a galaxy of women artists in Scotland who flourished in the last decade or so of the 19th century and the first of the our own. Pioneers, they were the first generation to claim their rightful place as artists, not just as isolated individuals, but collectively as a group. There were professional women artists elsewhere, but Scotland was ahead of the game, not only in overcoming the prejudice, but also, once it was overcome, in the rapidity with which they were able to take their place as professionals.
Jessie King was one of the first to do so. This year is the 50th anniversary of her death in 1949. She was born in 1875 in Kirkpatrick, Bearsden, a daughter of the manse. She went from there to Glasgow School of Art and thereafter pursued a long and fruitful career enjoying just recognition and success. Her anniversary has been marked by a number of events, notably an exhibition that started in Kirkcudbright and has now moved to Glasgow School of Art. Kirkcudbright because she and her husband, EA Walton, also an artist and an art critic, made the town their home, commuting for a while before the...