Phoebe Anna Traquair HRSA 1852-1936

Phoebe Anna Moss was born at Kilternan near Dublin but spent all her life from shortly after her marriage in 1873 to her death living and working in Edinburgh.

She was a correspondent of John Ruskin who encouraged her in her faithful copying of illuminated manuscripts and early prayer books and was a friend of James Pittendrigh Macgillivray RSA whose sculpted bust of her shows a sensitivity suggestive of a closer bond than the normal sculptor-sitter one.

Short, and with a mane of flaming red hair, Traquair was a veritable power-house of imagination, creativity and production.

In Dublin she had received art training under the national South Kensington scheme with its emphasis on sound draughtsmanship based on acute observation. It was there too that her eyes were first opened to the mystical beauty of illuminated manuscripts; the Book of Kells in Trinity College being an early inspiration.

Married life saw her raise three children, and she produced watercolours and embroidered linen whilst at home with them. She also illustrated the academic papers written by her husband Ramsay whose appointment as Keeper of Natural History at the Museum of Science and Art in Chambers Street had brought the newly-weds to Edinburgh in the first place. Her skills and aspirations however elevated her far above the rank of 'amateur' and from the early 1880s she was networking and socialising with many in Edinburgh who shared her views in the role of art in everyday life.

In 1884 Traquair secured her fist major commission, the decoration of the Mortuary Chapel in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh. This in turn led her to secure a larger commission for the Song School of the Cathedral Church of St Mary in Palmerston Place (1888-92) and ultimately to her masterpiece, the interior decorative scheme for the Catholic Apostolic Church, Mansfield Place which was completed in two phases between 1893 and 1901.

No wonder that it was William Hole who unsuccessfully proposed her election to the Associate rank of the Academy in 1900 and 1901; he by that time having completed the mural decoration within the newly built Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Already by 1900, when her name was first put forward for election, Traquair had an impressive body of work to her name. In addition to the mural cycles she had provided cover designs and internal illustrations for a raft of books, was on the eve of commencing an apprenticeship in enamel work under Lady Mary Gibson Carmichael, and had exhibited her work widely in the UK (and shortly in the United States of America, sending four large tapestry panels to the 1904 Louisiana Exposition). These facts were not lost on James Paterson RSA and explains why he sought to avoid the traditional routes of Associate and then Academician ranks and go straight for her election as an Honorary Member.

It is interesting to note that when she was put up for a second time in 1901 in an unprecedented move she was seconded not by one, but by nine fellow artists – all Scottish middle-aged and generally younger males. The majority had links to the west coast and The Glasgow Boys and were therefore more aware of progressive trends not only in painting, but in architecture (Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art was being erected in its first phase) and in the crossover into decorative arts as seen in the work of many artists associated with the Kirkcudbright 'School'.

In the end did this show of strength from the west coasters act against her election? Or was it the fact she was a woman? Or was it because she was perceived to be working in spheres deemed at odds with the ‘purity’ of the ‘fine’ arts?

That Traquair had to wait another 19 years before she was elected is one of the less glorious moments in our history. The episode did not deter her from making a generous bequest to our Collections at her death in 1936, and the honour she took, quite literally to her grave, it being inscribed on her headstone at Colinton churchyard.