Jessie King was one of the many talented artists who studied at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1890s under the direction of Francis Newbery. She was distinguished for her drawing and her work was promoted through the influential London-based magazine The Studio, which helped establish her reputation. A true practitioner of Arts and Crafts ideals, she also designed costumes, gesso panels, wallpapers, fabrics, posters, bookplates, and jewelry and silver. In 1902 she exhibited at the international exhibition in Turin, along with Margaret Macdonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frances Macdonald and James Herbert MacNair, her future husband E. A. Taylor, Ann Macbeth, and Jessie Newbery, and was awarded a gold medal for a book design.