A MAJOR festival is to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the architect and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Exhibitions, events, seminars and tours will take place across 2018 to celebrate the legacy of the Scottish designer and painter.

Highlights include a major exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, a programme of events at The Lighthouse and at Mackintosh Queen’s Cross, as well as the re-opening of Mackintosh at the Willow, Miss Cranston’s original Tea Rooms in Sauchiehall Street.

The Glasgow School of Art, The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow, House for An Art Lover and the new V&A Dundee will all play host to dedicated event and exhibition programmes.

Events include Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Making the Glasgow Style at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (30 March - 14 August 2018).

Spanning the lifetime of Mackintosh, it will present his work in the context of Glasgow and his peers.

The exhibition will also include important loans from private and public collections including The Hunterian and The Glasgow School of Art.

Miss Cranston’s original Willow Tea Rooms in their Sauchiehall Street location were designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1903 and are now undergoing restoration by the Willow Tea Rooms Trust.

It will open on 7 June 2018 to coincide with Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s birthday.

www.glasgowmackintosh.com/events

The Festival City Theatres Trust, which runs the Festival and King’s Theatres in Edinburgh, is to expand its programme of relaxed performances for audiences of all ages for the 2017/18 festive season.

Relaxed performances are tailored for people with additional needs.

The relaxed performance of The Snowman at the Festival Theatre in December 2012 was the first of its kind in Scotland.

There will be a relaxed, and dementia-friendly, performance of Scottish Ballet’s The Nutcracker at the Festival Theatre, Thursday 14 December.

Others include The Tin Soldier in The Studio, 16 December at 2pm, Cinderella on 12 January and18 January.

Every public performance in the run of Starcatcher’s The Attic in The Studio (6-21 Jan) is ‘relaxed’ with five additional performances for Edinburgh Special schools and an additional Dementia Friendly performance on 19 January at 1.30pm.

www.edtheatres.com

WORKS of art that brought the culture of India to Britain at the end of the 19th century go on display in Scotland for the first time in over 130 years, in a new exhibition opening at The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse this week.

Exploring the historic visit made by Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), Splendours of the Subcontinent: A Prince's Tour of India 1875–6 brings together examples of Indian design and craftsmanship, presented to the Prince as part of the traditional exchange of gifts.

Encouraged by his mother, Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales undertook a four-month tour of the Subcontinent in October 1875, travelling nearly 10,000 miles by land and sea.

By the end of the trip, Sir William Howard Russell, writer of the official tour diary, noted that the Prince had 'seen more of the country in the time than any living man'.

Splendours of the Subcontinent: A Prince's Tour of India 1875–6 is at The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, 15 December 2017 – 22 April 2018.

www.royalcollection.org.uk