The Amber Snuff Bottle, c.1989

Margaret McGavin (known as Sonny) was born in Glasgow and attended at Hutcheson’s Girls Grammar School. She studied at Glasgow School of Art during the Second World War and was awarded the Hugh Adam Crawford Prize, the SRC Prize, the Guthrie Prize for Portraiture and the David Donaldson Prize.  She was awarded the Robert Hart Trust Bursary in 1944 and 1945.  She taught art in schools in Glasgow from 1945-1947.   In 1947, Margaret married George Macdougall McGavin, a fellow artist, whom she met in the studio of David Donaldson.  Together, their lives were committed to teaching and painting, often exhibiting together.  She worked in watercolour and oils and in 1994 she received the Royal Diploma of Membership from the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. McGavin is also a past president of the Scottish Society of Women Artists, now Visual Arts Scotland.

McGavin’s work has a clarity that recalls her near contemporary Barbara Balmer, and she deployed strong colour in the best tradition of Scottish belle peinture.