Margo Maeckelberghe nee Margaret Oates Try (11 August 1932 – 10 January 2014) was a Cornish

Bard In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's a ...

and artist.

Biography

Maeckelberghe was born in

Penzance Penzance ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is the westernmost major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated in the ...

, where she grew up and lived for most of her life. She studied at the

Penzance School of Art Penzance School of Art is an art school in Penzance, Cornwall, England, housed in a purpose-built Grade II listed building opened in 1881. History and description The building, designed by Silvanus Trevail, was erected in 1880–81 and opened on ...

, and the

Bath Academy of Art Bath School of Art and Design is an art college in Bath, England, now known separately as the Bath School of Art and the Bath School of Design. It forms part of the Bath Spa University whose main campus is located a few miles from the City at N ...

from 1949 to 1952. She returned to Cornwall after spending two years teaching in London and Gibraltar. Maeckelberghe was best known for her dramatic contemporary landscapes and seascapes in oil. For many years her studio was at "Carn Cottage" at the top of the moors between Penzance and

Zennor Zennor (; (village) or (parish)) is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish includes the villages of Zennor, Boswednack and Porthmeor and the hamlet of Treen. Zennor lies on the north coast, about no ...

. "For me, the coasts, seas, moors, skies and rocks of Cornwall offer inexhaustible painting material," she told an interviewer in 2008. In 1963 she organized the first show of Belgian artists in West Cornwall, at the Newlyn Art Gallery in Penzance. In the 1990s she was elected Chair of the

Penwith Society of Artists The Penwith Society of Arts is an art group formed in St Ives, Cornwall, England, UK, in early 1949 by abstract artists who broke away from the more conservative St Ives School. It was originally led by Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, and ...

and was elected a

Cornish Bard Gorsedh Kernow (Cornish Gorsedd) is a non-political Cornish organisation, based in Cornwall, United Kingdom, which exists to maintain the national Celtic spirit of Cornwall. It is based on the Welsh-based Gorsedd, which was founded by Iolo Mor ...

in 1997. In 2008, "Extended Landscape," a major exhibition of her works, opened at

Tate St. Ives Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculptur ...

Personal life

Margo Oates Try married a Belgian-born doctor, Willy Maeckelberghe. They had two children, a son Paul and daughter Nico. Widowed in 2007, she died in 2014, aged 81 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maeckelberghe, Margo 1932 births 2014 deaths 20th-century English painters 21st-century English painters Alumni of Bath School of Art and Design Artists from Cornwall Bards of Gorsedh Kernow People from Penzance 20th-century English women painters 21st-century English women painters