1 Gorbals-born artist and sculptor Hannah Frank, who died in 2008 aged 100, was the city’s last living link to Art Nouveau.
2 Frank’s father was a Russian émigré, who fled persecution to settle in Glasgow in 1905. He began business as a master mechanic and after a few years he married Miriam Lipetz, and eventually opened a shop at 67 Saltmarket for the design, sale and repair of photographic and scientific apparatus. Frank encouraged his daughter to study art, and she worked hard to overcome stereotypes and persecution.
3 She studied at Glasgow University, graduating in 1930 and then, after teacher training college, became a teacher. She also won a place at Glasgow School of Art, where she won the James McBey Prize for wood engraving. Between
1927 and 1932 she regularly contributed drawings, under the pen name of Al Aaraaf, to GUM, the Glasgow University Magazine.
3 Her elegant pen-and-ink drawings, done between the 1920s and the 1940s, and her sculptures, dating from the 1950s to the early 2000s, are now exhibited all over the world. Frank is considered one of Scotland’s most significant artists.
4 Frank’s work is permanently honoured as part of a set of seven arches, designed by artist Liz Peden and unveiled in 2016, under the Cleland Street railway bridge in Glasgow’s Gorbals.
5 Hannah Frank died in December 2008 in a care home in Glasgow, where her drawings and sculpture are still on show and are much admired by residents, staff and visitors. Exhibitions of her work continue to be held and celebrity fans include actor Miriam Margolyes.
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