Collections

After Mrs Fanny McIan, only the second woman artist to be recognized [albeit reluctantly] by the Royal Scottish Academy, with the award of an HRSA in 1920. The RSA Annual Report for 1936 gave the following obituary (Notice XIII, pp10-12): Mrs PHOEBE ANNA TRAQUAIR, HRSA. Daughter of Dr.Moss, Physician, Mrs Traquair was born in Dublin on 24th May 1852, and died in Edinburgh on 6th [sic] Augiust 1936 at the age of 84. Her sole tuition in Art seems to have been received between the age of 15 and 19 at the Dublin School of Art under the South kensington system. She was successful in gaining a Queen's Prize for a fan and a medal for studies from the Greek and premiated for Anatomy. Subsequently she made many visits to foreign Galleries. In 1872 she married Dr. Ramsay Traquair, a Scottish Scientist working in Dublin and for whom, while at the School of Art, she had made illustrated diagrams. On her husband's appointment as keeper of the Natural History Department of the Royal Scottish Museum, Mrs Traquair settle din Edinburgh. The early years of her married life were devoted to family duties, and it was not for some considerable time that she again turned her activities to Art. Her emergence as a creative artist was through embroidery, which she use din large pictorial panels, much influenced by Burne-Jones. She also worked in illumination and in enamel. Important examples of these crafts are now in the National Gallery. The works by which she is most widely known are, however, her mural paintings. These she began in the 'eighties, when, at the suggestion of Professor Patrick Geddes, she decorated a little room which served as mortuary in the Sick Children's Hospital - decorations afterwards transferred to the chapel of the new Hospital. This was followed by a series of panels in the Song School of St.Mary's Cathedral, Manor Place, Edinburgh. From 1893 to 1900 Mrs Traquair was engaged in the painting of the Catholic Apostolic Church, London Street, the side chapels, the nave, and the west wall being decorated in sequence. As with all he rmural paintings, these are executed in oil-colour upon plaster coated heavily with white lead. Other important works were, a Memorial Chapel for Lord Manners at Avon Tyrrill, Christ Church, Nottinghamshire, in "All Saints" Church and St.Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow. Mrs Traquair was elected an Honorary Memebr of the Academy in 1920. Her portrait bust by Dr.Pittendrigh Macgillivray RSA, is in the possession of the trustees for the National Gallery. Her husband died in 1912, and she is survived by her sons, Ramsay Traquair, MA(Hons), FRIBA, Professor of Architecture, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and H.M.Traquair, MD FRSCE, Opthalmic Surgeon, Edinburgh, and also a married daughter." BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cumming, Dr Elizabeth : Phoebe Anna Traquair 1852-1936, Exhibition catalogue, SNPG, 1993; Cumming, Dr Elizabeth: Phoebe Anna Traquair 1852-1936, Book, NGS in conjunction with NMS, 2005; Cumming, Dr Elizabeth: Hand, Heart and Soul, The Arts & Crafts Movement in Scotland, Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2006 The Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh hold signifcant collections of Traquair's work.