Pegi Nicol MacLeod

Who was Pegi Nicol MacLeod?

Pegi Nicol MacLeod, was a Canadian artist. Born Margaret Kathleen Nicol, she was part of the first wave of Canadian modernist painters. She was born in Listowel, Ontario and was a pupil of Franklin Brownell in Ottawa. She later studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. In 1932 she won the Willingdon Arts Competition prize for painting. She lived in Toronto from 1934 to 1937 when she married Norman MacLeod. The couple then moved to New York City, but she returned annually to Fredericton, New Brunswick, where in 1940 she opened an art centre for aspiring artists at the University of New Brunswick.

A painter of people and landscapes, her pieces tend to reveal a sombre though joyful, reflective and humanitarian insight. MacLeod often painted in muted tones, showing the likely influence of the Group of Seven, which had a similar impact on many Canadian painters in the first half of the Twentieth century.

MacLeod was opposed to World War II, though in 1944 she accepted a commission by the National Gallery of Canada to paint many scenes depicting the Women's Division of the Armed Forces as means of showcasing the war from a female perspective. MacLeod died of cancer in New York City in 1949, leaving a legacy of more than a thousand works of art that included many paintings and other art forms including as designs for hooked rugs.