254 - Annie French,

Annie French, Scottish 1872-1965- Hips and Haws are Very Good Meat, but Bread and Butter is Better to Eat; watercolour and ink on paper, annotated on the reverse ' 'Hips and Haws are Very Good Meat, but Bread and Butter is Better to Eat' old saying ? shortage times', 8.9 x 10.7 cm (ARR) Proveance: Private Collection, gifted by the artist's nephew, 6th October 1983 (according to the inscription on the reverse of the frame); The Estate of John Byrne (1945-2025) Note: French studied under Francis Newbery (1855-1946) and Jean Delville (1867-1953) at the Glasgow School of Art, which she attended between 1886-89. It was here that she was associated with a group of pioneering female artists and designers, including Jessie M. King (1875-1949), Frances MacDonald (1873-1921), and Ann Macbeth (1875-1948), who later became known as the 'Glasgow Girls'. French is known for her distinctive illustrations which are clearly heavily inspired by the Art Nouveau movement, with swirling, dense, and highly graphic compositions which exhibit the influence, in particular, of her contemporary Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898).