The Gift of Doves (?)

MacNair was influenced by border ballads, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Symbolism, with startling juxtapositions of the delicate and the profound. This drawing forms a pair with 'The Golden Heart' (WAG 1997.13) by Frances McDonald (1873 - 1921), a leading light of the Glasgow School, and MacNair's wife from 1899. The two drawings are distinct stylistically but highly complementary. As MacNair wrote to a friend in 1945: 'When two are working in concert, it is hard to say how much is the suggestion or influence of the one and how much that of the other.'