Ernest Archibald Taylor

• Birth date            5 September 1874 at Greenock, Scotland
• Marriage              1908 to Jessie Marion King
• Death date          November 1951

 The son of Major W E Taylor of the Royal Artillery, Ernest Archibald Taylor was born in Greenock on 5 September 1874., the fifteenth of seventeen children.  He was raised by his uncle, and began his working life as a draughtsman in the shipyards of Scott and Company.  In July 1898 he had moved to the established and successful cabinet-making firm of Wylie & Lochhead, of Glasgow as a trainee designer and about this time he began evening classes at the Glasgow School of Art (1898-1903). Here he met C R Mackintosh, who was to be a great influence on Taylor. He also attended furniture design classes at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, becoming a part-time Instructor in furniture design at the School of Art from 1903 until 1905, while also working on various private commissions. His furniture designs are often elegant and include stained glass inserts, pierced decoration, roses and split hearts.

With George Logan and John Ednie, he was one of three young designers chosen by Wylie & Lochhead to produce designs for the company's pavilion at the 1901 Glasgow International Exhibition in Kelvingrove Park. He created a drawing room decorated in pale greens, pinks, and mauves. The furnishings were embellished with roses, butterflies, and hearts, which were all familiar Taylor motifs. Taylor's exquisite drawing room brought him two major private commissions for interiors, the first for a house in Birmingham belonging to Mr and Mrs R. H. Coats and the second for William Douglas Weir (later Lord Weir) in Pollokshields, Glasgow. For these private commissions, Taylor designed colourful, vivid glass panels as prominent features of the furniture, doors and windows.

In 1902, Taylor and his fiancée, Jessie Marion King, worked together on an exhibit for the Turin International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art, incorporating a series of stained-glass panels of moonlit pastures, wooded landscapes and medieval garlanded ladies inspired by poetry, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and the spiritual imagination of Jessie King. There and at Budapest he was awarded a Diploma of Honour and medal.

E A Taylor and Jessie King married in September 1908, and after a honeymoon in Arran, the couple set up home at 50 Bolton Road, Pendleton, in Salford, where their only child, Merle, was born in August, the following year. They had met over a decade before when he moved into the same block of studio apartments in St. Vincent Street, Glasgow in 1897. They became engaged in November 1898, and around this time he began attending part-time classes at the Glasgow School of Art, where Jessie was a full-time student.The move to Salford had been occasioned by Taylor’s appointment as designer and manager of George Wragge Ltd, and for the next two years he was particularly involved in producing designs for stained glass window commissions. However, The Studio Yearbook for 1907 includes designs by Taylor, executed by George Wragge. Whether these designs were produced from afar, of whether E A Taylor had moved to Salford a year before his marriage is unclear. Curiously, he is included in Slater’s Directory of 1909 under the name of Evan A Taylor. A brief resume of his activities at this time was included in the Studio yearbook of 1909:

Mr. E A Taylor, who has been so prominently associated with the modern movement in decorative art in Glasgow, has transferred his studio to Pendleton, where he is designing for Messrs. Wragge, of "The Crafts," Salford. Mr. Taylor has applied himself to almost every branch of the decorative arts. He designs interior fitments, furniture, carpets, wallpapers, stained and leaded glass, metal-work, mosaics, posters, &c., and is a worker in gesso, glass, and mural decorative painting. His most recent important works include a memorial window for St. Bartholomew's Church, Rosario de Santa Fé, Argentine Republic; six windows for the Unitarian Church, Pendleton; an oak reredos and decorative panels for Woodbine Street, Salford; and designs for a private residence in New York. An article on his work was published in the December number of The Studio, 1904, and some of his designs have appeared in all the previous issues of The Studio Year Book.  [Studio Yearbook page 75-76]

In April 1910, Taylor accepted a teaching post at Tudor Hart’s ‘Paris School of Drawing and Painting,’ a private art school in Paris. It was an unhappy move, and in 1911 he and Jessie set up their own school, “The Shealing Atelier,” at their own home in the Montparnasse quarter of the city. The outbreak of the First World War, and the consequent loss of students, prompted the Taylors to leave Paris for Kirkcudbright, Scotland, where they moved into a cottage on High Street which Jessie King had purchased in 1907, before her marriage. They would remain in Kirkcudbright for the rest of their lives. This small town in the south-west of Scotland became a centre of artistic achievement with many other artists and craftsmen being attracted to their studio. They also initiated a summer school at High Corrie on the island of Arran, where Taylor painted some of his finest landscapes. During the inter-war period he concentrated on his landscape painting, writing for The Studio, designing book covers and painting pottery.

The summer schools were not revived after the Second World War, and Taylor’s last years were spent quietly in Kirkcudbright. Jessie M King died in 1949, and in November 1951 Taylor suffered a heart attack, dying at the age of 77.

Residence
1897        St Vincent Street, Glasgow
1909        Evan(sic) A Taylor, artist, 50, Bolton Road, Pendleton  Salford (Slater’s Directory)
1910-1914    Montparnasse, Paris
1914-1951    “The Greengate,” High Street, Kirkcudbright

Works

1902-1905    A Glasgow Artist and Designer: The Work of E A Taylor
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts 1905 page 215-226 with 17 illustrations.

1907        “Golden Rowan of Menalowan”.
Panel in leaded glass Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by Geo. Wragge, Ltd.
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts, 1907 page 146

1907        Leaded Panel.
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by McCullock and Company.
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts, 1907 page 138

1907        Hall Window
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by Geo. Wragge, Ltd.
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts, 1907 page 138

1908        Corridor Window [B184}: and Billiard Room Window “The Village” [B185}
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by Geo. Wragge, Ltd.
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts, 1908

1909        Drawing Room Window:
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by Geo. Wragge, Ltd.
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts 1910 page 113

1908-1910     “One Morning Oh So Early”
Artist        Ernest Archibald Taylor
Ink and watercolour on card; 190 mm wide by 464mm high (7.48 inches by 18.27 inches) 
Inspired by a poem by the English poet Jean Ingelow, this was most likely designed in Manchester where Taylor had moved in 1907 or 1908.
Provenance     The artist by descent to Merle Taylor, the artist's daughter, to 1977

1908-1910    Stained Glass Windows
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by Geo. Wragge, Ltd.
Reference    J H Elder Duncan: The House Beautiful and Useful page 41-42 illustrations

1914        Three stained glass windows for Country Residence in France
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by George Rhind.  House destroyed during the early months of the war.
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts 1915

1917        “The Princess of the Yellow Rose” – Window for Drawing Room Inglenook
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by Ernest Archibald Taylor
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts 1917

1917        “Kirkudbright” –  Landing Window
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by Ernest Archibald Taylor
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts 1917

1917        Hall Window
Designed by Ernest Archibald Taylor Executed by Ernest Archibald Taylor
Reference    Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts 1918 page 61