Glasgow School of Art is known the world over for the pivotal role it played in the creation of the 'Glasgow Style' and for the radical originality of the building it commissioned in 1897. As the building's architect, and the most brilliant designer of his generation, Charles Rennie Mackintosh looms large in any account of the impact Glasgow made on the European art scene in the early twentieth century, and the Mackintosh Building is rightly recognised as the most complete manifestation of his design philosophy.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh memorably likened art to a flower and life itself to the foliage that accompanies its growth. This book explores for the first time the uniquely vibrant artistic and social culture that combined, in the early decades of the twentieth century, to make Glasgow School of Art one of the most outstanding institutions in the history of art education.