Edinburgh Evening News

Mackintosh was probably a bit of an over-achiever. Not content with being one of the most distinctive designers of his day, he was also a celebrated architect, and, as it turns out, quite a painter too. He often went much further than "simply" being an architect, he would frequently design the interiors of his buildings too, and in the same way that his designs informed his architecture, both of those also influenced his paintings. His botanical studies, themselves marked with the stamp of his design style, reflect the motifs he used in jewellery and furniture. This exhibition gathers together more than 40 watercolours created in the last years of his life, after he went to live in France in 1923. It includes some of those famous botanical pieces like Fritillaria and Hazel Tree, Lamb's Tails - both from 1915. These show a lightness of touch associated with watercolour painting, whereas Begonias, from 1916, is denser, perhaps even a little over-painted.