17 Facts About Margaret Stoddart

Margaret Olrog Stoddart was a New Zealand artist.

Margaret Stoddart's grandfather was Admiral Pringle Stoddart, a British Royal Navy officer.

Margaret Stoddart's uncle was the Scottish poet Thomas Tod Stoddart.

The family moved back to Scotland in 1876, and Margaret Stoddart attended Edinburgh Ladies' College there.

Margaret Stoddart began establishing a reputation as one of the country's foremost flower painters, and in 1885 was elected to the council of the Canterbury Society of Arts.

Margaret Stoddart's travels were recorded in an album which was later presented to the Canterbury Museum.

Margaret Stoddart exhibited at the Auckland Society of Arts in 1892.

Margaret Stoddart stayed in London before moving to live at St Ives in Cornwall, at the time hosting a colony of artists.

Margaret Stoddart spent over nine years painting in Europe, living not only in England, but France and Italy.

Margaret Stoddart took lessons from Norman Garstin, Louis Grier and Charles Lasal amongst others and was strongly influenced by the Impressionist movement.

In England, Margaret Stoddart intermittently met up with Frances Hodgkins, another expatriate artist.

Margaret Stoddart exhibited with the Royal Institute in London, the Society of Aquarellists in Rome, and in Paris she showed at the Salon of the Societe des Artistes Francais and the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

Margaret Stoddart returned to New Zealand in November 1906 and went to live with her mother and sister.

In later years Margaret Stoddart was a member of the Christchurch Sketch Club, vice president of the Canterbury Society of Arts and taught at the Canterbury College School of Art.

Margaret Stoddart influenced many other younger artists through her teaching.

Margaret Stoddart died in Hanmer Springs, North Canterbury, of a heart attack on 10 December 1934.

Margaret Stoddart's death was marked by major retrospective exhibitions of her work in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland in 1935.