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| | ARTIST NAME: | Seelye, Margaret | | ACCESSION NUMBER: | 1990.208.002 | | TITLE: | THIRD GRADE CHORUS | | DATE: | 1989 | | CATEGORY: | Printmaking | | MEDIUM: | monoprint
cloth, foil collage | | SUPPORT: | paper | | DIMENSIONS: | Image: 30 x 44.8 cm (11 13/16 x 17 5/8 in.)
Sheet: 38 x 56.3 cm (14 15/16 x 22 3/16 in.) | | COLLECTION: | Alberta Foundation for the Arts |
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| | OTHER HOLDINGS: | Seelye, Margaret | | ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: |
Margaret Seelye was born in 1915 in Masset, in the Queen Charlotte Islands. She would later relate the story of how at her birth a Haida chief, “over seven feet tall,” was so impressed at the beautiful baby and her lovely mother that he tried to buy them both. The purchase was never transacted, but the story is a typical episode in her eventful life. From the West Coast, her family moved to Great Bend District by the Red Deer River when Seelye was very young to homestead and operate a coal mine. Margaret was obsessed with making art from an early age and drew and painted constantly as a child. She began a teaching career in 1934 at a small school in Carroll, near Alix, Alberta before marrying and moving back to the Queen Charlotte Islands for a brief period. After returning to the Red Deer area, her husband died in 1951, leaving her to raise three young children by herself. She carried on, combining teaching with parenting and also continued her education, eventually receiving a Master’s degree in Art Education from the University of Alberta in 1971. Throughout, she also maintained her activities as an artist and took extension courses as well as credit art courses from the University of Alberta, studying composition and design, art history, drawing, visual communication, painting, sculpture and print-making. She also attended sessions organized by Alberta Culture at Olds College and Red Deer College.
Besides showing her art frequently in the Province of Alberta, Margaret Seelye provided vital encouragement to other artists, both through her teaching and through her involvement in various arts organizations, including the Red Deer Art Club, the Fine Arts Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association, the Alberta Community Art Clubs' Association and the Calgary Artists' Society, and in her lifetime received many awards for her work with art and artists in the Province.
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