Francis Newbery was an influential artist and art educationist who, as headmaster/director, led the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) from 1885–1918. He was responsible, in part, for the appointment of Charles Rennie Mackintosh as architect of the GSA's new building, completed in 1909. In this painting, Newbery depicts the influential building committee responsible for overseeing the construction of the new school. It is believed that the figure of Mackintosh (to the far left of the canvas and carrying the plans of his own building), was subsequently added to the canvas after it was first exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute in 1913, and before it was eventually presented to the GSA a year later in 1914. A larger version of the same Mackintosh portrait is in the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.