For much of the nineteenth century, Scottish art had a very particular character - certainly good, but rather conservative and perhaps a little dull. The Glasgow Boys emerged on the scene in the early 1880s, excited by new developments on the Continent, and fighting their way to the notice of the British art world. But there were Glasgow Girls too, a little later, women who made their mark in many branches of art and design, helped by the advent of a new forward-looking regime at the Glasgow School of Art.

This lecture will tell the story of the Glasgow Girls and introduce many of the most important characters, including textile artists Jessie Newbery and Ann Macbeth, illustrator Jessie M King, fine artists Stansmore Dean, Bessie MacNicol and Norah Neilson Gray, and the sets of talented sisters working together in the field of design and applied art - the Waltons, the Gilmours and, of course, the remarkable Macdonalds - Frances and Margaret, the latter known for so much of the twentieth century as just Mrs Mackintosh. Now their outstanding achievements are being increasingly researched and celebrated, as they so rightly deserve.