Margaret Wrightson (1877-1976)

Margaret Wrightson studied at the Royal College of Art under William Blake (1842–1921) and Edouard Lanteri (1848–1917). From 1906, she exhibited extensively with the RA, the SWA and the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Gaining prominence during the First World War, she received frequent commissions for statues of remembrance, such as the figure of St George on the memorial at Cramlington in Northumberland (1922). Although perhaps constrained by the demands of the traditional iconography of her period, Wrightson produced a number of works created from a distinctly feminist view, such as Spirit of the Garden (1912) – a female nude with a bronze collar bearing the words ‘Spirit of the Garden, Peace, Hope, Love, Courage’ and her striking Mechanic, Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, 1917. She was elected a fellow of the RBS in 1943 and was also a member of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.