Born in Glasgow in 1869, Elizabeth MacNicol, known as Bessie, was one of the few artists within the Glasgow Girls group who excelled at painting during her time at the Glasgow School of Art (1887-1892).
With the encouragement of the School’s Director Fra Newbery, MacNicol attended a summer school at Lundin Links in Fife, and later travelled to Paris to continue her training at the Academie Colarossi. In 1893, MacNicol exhibited for her first and only time at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. This was also her first year exhibiting at the Royal Glasgow Institute, where she would continue to exhibit until her death in 1904.
By 1894, MacNicol had acquired a studio at 175 St Vincent Street in Glasgow. It was around this time that she discovered the artists’ town of Kirkcudbright, and she henceforth began to paint there alongside members of the Glasgow Boys school. Her only solo show was in 1899 at Stephen Gooden’s Art Rooms in Glasgow, and in the same year she married medical doctor-turned-artist Alexander Frew. From their home in the West End of Glasgow, MacNicol painted mainly figurative work in her studio, and continued exhibiting in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and internationally until her untimely death in childbirth in 1904. Art critics of the time praised MacNicol for her expressive and vigorous style of painting, comparing her favourably with her male contemporaries. At her funeral, the all-male Glasgow Art Club members’ tribute praised her as ‘a true artist’.
MacNicol is well represented in public collections. In her lifetime she exhibited widely in Scotland at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Glasgow Society of Women Artists, the Royal Glasgow Institute, and the Royal Scottish Society of Watercolourists. Her works have also been exhibited in London, Liverpool, Manchester, throughout Europe and the USA.
