18 Facts About Margaret Priest

Margaret Priest was born on 1944 and is a Toronto based artist, educator and arts advocate.

Margaret Priest's work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally in solo and group exhibitions since 1970.

Margaret Priest is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, where she taught in the School of Fine Art and Music from 1983 to 2001, and has guest lectured extensively in Canada, England and the United States.

Margaret Priest has been living and working in Toronto since 1976, after relocating from England with her husband, the Canadian-born painter Tony Scherman.

Margaret Priest was born at Tyringham Hall, England, then a war-time maternity hospital for people evacuated from the bombing of London in World War II.

Margaret Priest grew up in the family council house in Becontree, Dagenham.

Margaret Priest's father Arthur was a railway employee; her mother Gertrude Tommason was the daughter of a stonemason.

Margaret Priest studied at the South West Essex Technical College and School of Art in 1963 and 1964 before entering Maidstone College of Art.

Margaret Priest was a lecturer at Saint Martin's School of Art in London from 1972 to 1976, when she moved to Canada.

Margaret Priest was Professor in the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph from 1983 to 2001, and is professor emeritus.

Margaret Priest's work is not overtly feminist or political, but issues of gender and social class have had a critical role in her approach and thinking.

Margaret Priest often uses research-selected photographs as a source and starting point for her architectural drawings, through which alterations and refinements are made.

Between 1996 and 2000, Margaret Priest created three fully dimensional sculptures each titled The Critic's Armchair.

Linda Norden described the unique conditions and approach of the process of creating this work, in which Margaret Priest directed the activity of around 40 trade workers, all male, subverting the usual gender dynamic of construction.

Margaret Priest continued the sculptural work of the Monument with a suite of 27 etchings produced in 1994: The 27th etching is a facsimile of the dedication panel.

Margaret Priest received an Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations Teaching Award in 1996, and was recognized for her role in developing the University's MFA program.

Margaret Priest has been a visiting critic and lecturer at the University of Toronto, Carleton University, and the University of Waterloo, and has been a visiting critic at the Yale School of Architecture and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Margaret Priest served for a number of years as a Trustee for the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation.