The following biography of James Herbert MacNair has been extracted in full from the Dictionary of Scottish Architects: www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/
James Herbert MacNair (1868 -1955). Source Wikipedia Commons
James Herbert (Bertie) MacNair was born at 18 Ashton Terrace, Glasgow on 23 December 1868, the only son of the coalmaster and shipowner George Best MacNair, who came of a military family, and Frances Dorothy Dixon, who came from Rotherfield in England; there were three daughters. The family moved in 1872 to Birch Bank, Skelmorlie, a house altered for them by John Honeyman whose wife also came of a shipowning family. Herbert was educated at the Collegiate School, Greenock and although Honeyman’s son William was sent to Loretto they remained firm friends until the latter’s death in 1885. The elder MacNair wanted his son to become an engineer but at the end of his schooling he studied watercolour for a year under a M Haudebert in Rouen prior to being articled to John Honeyman in 1888. There he became a friend of Honeyman’s new partner John Keppie and of Charles Rennie Mackintosh who arrived in the office in April of the following year. They travelled together to supervise the firm’s work at Achamore on Gigha and to Iona, and were frequent weekend guests of the Keppies at Prestwick and Dunure.
‘The Immortals’. Back Row: Margaret Macdonald – Middle Row L-R: Frances Macdonald, Katherine Cameron, Janet Aitken, Agnes Raeburn, Jessie Keppie, John Keppie – Front Row L-R: Herbert McNair, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Source Wikipedia Commons
There MacNair became part of the predominantly female circle of artists centred on Jessie Keppie which called itself The Immortals and included his future wife, Frances Macdonald. He also studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1889 to 1894 and from 1895 to 1896.
While in Honeyman & Keppie’s office MacNair developed a marked interest in furniture design in parallel with Mackintosh. When he left at the end of his articles in 1894, he set up a studio and workshop at 225 West George Street, Glasgow as interior decorator, furniture designer and maker, graphic artist and watercolourist rather than as architect. This was moderately successful and produced some important furniture; but MacNair lost his stock in a workshop fire in 1897. He then moved to Liverpool as Instructor in Design at the School of Architecture and Applied Art at University College in 1898. By that date he had become engaged to Frances and was, with her older sister Margaret and husband-to-be Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a member of the group known as The Four which had come to wider attention at the Arts and Crafts Society exhibition in London in 1896.
The Gift of Doves (1904) by Herbert MacNair. Source: National Museum Liverpool, Lady Lever Art Gallery.
Herbert and Frances married at Dumbarton on 14 June 1899. Their son Sylvan was born a year later. In Liverpool they redecorated their house which featured in ‘The Studio’ in 1901, became friends of Augustus John and did a fair amount of private client work. They exhibited at the Vienna Secession in 1900 and at Turin in 1902 but were unable to travel with the Mackintoshes as Sylvan was too small. This run of success terminated when the University College School merged with the Municipal Art School in 1905, MacNair leaving to teach with Frances at the Sandon Studios in the same city; by that date Frances was commuting to Glasgow where she taught a course in embroidery and jewellery. The Sandon Studios were not, however, a success and the MacNairs returned to Glasgow in 1908, initially staying with the Mackintoshes at Florentine Terrace.
MacNair did not succeed in re-establishing a practice in Glasgow. His father died in 1910, an event which seems to have coincided with the collapse of the family business in 1909, bringing his private income to an end. He took to drink. The Macdonald family are said to have sent him to Canada on a one-way ticket but he managed to return. Thereafter he worked for a time as a postman and motor mechanic: Frances continued to teach at Glasgow School of Art until 1911 when an exhibition of thirty-four of their watercolours was held at the John Baillie Gallery, probably with the object of raising money.
Frances died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage on 12 December 1921. Herbert was distraught and destroyed all of the work then in her studio and vowed never to paint or draw again. He moved from Glasgow to Linlithgow where he and Sylvan ran a garage until Sylvan emigrated to South Africa in the later 1920s. Herbert then moved to Argyll to live with one of his sisters. Thomas Howarth visited him there in 1944 to obtain his recollections. MacNair died in an old people’s home at Innellan on 22 April 1955.
Source: Dictionary of Scottish Architects – James Herbert MacNair