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Gladys Maccabe
Born: June 5th, 1918
Died: February 22nd, 2018
The Antrim-born artist, fashion journalist and art critic Gladys Maccabe, who has died in her 100th year, was a prolific painter and an inspiration to a generation of women artists in Northern Ireland.
She was born in Randalstown, Co Antrim, to an artistic couple. Her mother, Elizabeth, was a designer in the linen business; her father, George Chalmers, a former officer in the Gordon Highlanders, was an artist specialising in calligraphy and illumination. He died when she was just 11.
Gladys was educated at Brookvale Collegiate School, in Belfast, and at 16 she had a drawing published in the Royal Drawing Society magazine. Determined to pursue a career in the arts – even though that was not the “done thing” for young women at the time – she studied drawing, painting and fashion design at Belfast College of Art.
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In 1941 Gladys married Max Maccabe, whom she had known since childhood. She encouraged him to paint, and they held their first joint exhibition at London’s Kensington Gallery in 1949. That year the couple also had an exhibition at the Dawson Gallery in Dublin.
Gladys and Max were members of the Contemporary Ulster Group, a group of artists that also included Daniel O’Neill, Gerard Dillon and George Campbell. One of Belfast’s most famous painters, William Conor, sat for her; the portrait now hangs in the Ulster Museum.
Although Ulster Protestants by birth, Gladys and Max believed art transcended boundaries, and they exhibited and sold their work in Dublin, Belfast and London.
Throughout the 1950s – when their sons Hugh and Chris were young – the couple brought their love of music and art to every corner of Northern Ireland, Max playing the violin and Gladys playing the piano and drawing spontaneous illustrations of their performances.
They also worked as art critics during this time, Max for the Sunday Independent and Gladys for the Irish Independent.
Aware that Northern Ireland could be a cold country for artists, particularly women artists, Gladys founded the Ulster Society of Women Artists in 1957 with her fellow artists Renee Bickerstaff, Deborah Brown, Mercy Hunter and Alice Berger Hammerschlag, among others. The society has continued to thrive, and her son, Chris Maccabe, the prominent Northern Ireland civil servant who has worked in conflict resolution around the world, attended its 60th anniversary exhibition in 2017 on her behalf.
A glamorous and stylish woman, Gladys Maccabe worked as a fashion journalist in the 1960s and 1970s, attending shows in London and Paris
A glamorous and stylish woman, Gladys worked as a fashion journalist in the 1960s and 1970s, attending shows in London and Paris and reporting for several media organisations, including the Belfast Newsletter and BBC Northern Ireland, where she would sometimes draw the latest styles live on television. She was also arts editor of Ulster Tatler for many years.
Throughout her life she held on to a determined dedication to her art. Her paintings focused on everyday life, drawing viewers into the different characters at race meetings, fairs, church gatherings or evening dances. Speaking about how she was inspired by people, she once said, “When I see a crowd I get a sense of excitement as well as a feeling of compassion and am often moved to record what I see.”
During the height of the Troubles she depicted scenes she saw around her, and in October 1969 four of her paintings, Barricades, Blazing Warehouse, Petrol Bomb Sequel and Funeral of a Victim, were included in the Royal Institute of Oil Painters' annual exhibition in London.
She also painted still-life studies and had a particular fascination with clowns. A retrospective exhibition of her work from 1935 to 1989 was held at the George Gallery in Dublin in 1989. Her work is held in permanent collections at the Ulster Museum, the Royal Ulster Academy, the Arts Council of Ireland, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland and the Imperial War Museum in London.
In 1980 Gladys was given an honorary MA by Queen's University Belfast, and in 2000 she was awarded an MBE for service to the arts. Her biography, Drawing from Memory, by Susan Stairs, was published in 2004.
Gladys was also an honorary member of the Royal Ulster Academy and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. She continued to paint and sell her work until she was 91, after which the sudden onset of dementia prevented her from painting.
Gladys is survived by her son Chris, her daughter-in-law Jenny, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Her husband, Max, died in 2000 and her son, Hugh, died in 2017.