IN 1994 a century of training in embroidery and weaving at Glasgow School of Art was celebrated with a colourful exhibition in the Mackintosh Gallery. At the memorable opening ceremony some remarkably early alumni were around to grace the occasion, not least Kathleen Mann (or Crawford), then well into her eighties.
In 1930, when the original excitement generated in the department pioneered by Jessie Newbery was wearing thin, young Miss Mann arrived from the Royal College of Art to breathe new energy into the scene as Head of Embroidery. Kathleen led the department into the new era. Spontaneity became important: the essence was immediacy with creativity freed from the old straitjacket of decorative stitchery. Stitchery took its place along with ideas of pictorial design in applique.
Not all Miss Mann's students were girls. The then director, W O Hutchison, was so impressed by her work he sent a group of male students (Bill Crosbie and David Donaldson among them) for a weekly class to ''loosen up their vision''.
In 1933 Kathleen Mann became Mrs Hugh Adam Crawford and the school of art was the loser - it is now hard to believe the rules then forbade female members of staff to remain in employment after marriage. But Kathleen Crawford, with a young family to rear, continued to create everything from individual embroideries to a set of stunning mitres for the bishop of Glasgow. Her printed work ranges from illustrated handbooks on embroidery, design, and stitches, and applique, design and method to the two substantial, and informative volumes on peasant costume in Europe which have never been surpassed for exquisite line and colour illustrations, demonstrating detail and pattern.
All her later life, in Aberdeenshire and at Broughty Ferry (Hugh Adam Crawford left Glasgow School of Art to become head of Gray's School of Art and finally principal of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art), and lastly at Blanefield, Kathleen Crawford's creativity, as painter, gardener, house decorator, remained active right up until her last long illness. Her many friends and her family, sons and grandchildren, will greatly miss her.
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