King, Jessie M
 

Jessie Marion King was the most important and best known of the Glasgow Girls. Born in 1875, the daughter of a preacher, she studied at Glasgow School of Art under Charles Rennie Macintosh. She later returned there to teach.

She married E A Taylor and they settled in Kirkcudbright - an enclave for artists who valued its quality of light. The couple bought a row of houses known as Green Gate Close, and Jessie gathered round her a clutch of Glasgow trained female artists. The group became known as the Green Gate Close Coterie, and King used a picture of a green gate in her signature.

She was multi-talented, working in metal, batik, fabric design, book illustration, book cover design, pottery decoration and much more. She excelled at all she undertook. Her pottery - decorated on blanks bought from various sources - was sold exclusively through Paul Jones's Tea Rooms in Kircudbright.

The Green Gate Close Coterie was still in existence when she died in 1949.

Further reading:

Glasgow Girls : Women in Art and Design 1880-1920 edited by Jude Burkhauser