Marion Nicoll

Early Life, Family and Training

Marion Nicoll was born on 11 April 1909 in Calgary, Alberta. She was the daughter of Robert Mackay and Florence Gingras, immigrants who had come from Scotland and Ireland to the Canadian prairies. Her early interest in making marks began in a basement studio when she was only thirteen. By the time she reached her teenage years, she was taking classes at St. Joseph's Convent in Red Deer, Alberta, between 1925 and 1926.

The path of her training led her away from the prairies to the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. She spent the years from 1927 to 1929 studying there, working under the guidance of several landscape artists. Arthur Lismer, Frank Johnston, and J.E.H. MacDonald were among those who taught her during this period. These years in Toronto provided the formal foundation for the work she would later produce in Alberta.

Training and Teaching in Calgary

After her early studies, Nicoll returned to Calgary to undergo further training at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art between 1929 and 1932. Her presence in the local art scene grew quickly. By 1933, she had become the first woman instructor at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art. This period marked the beginning of a long relationship with the institution, where she would eventually teach design and crafts.

Her teaching career extended beyond the walls of the Institute. She shared her knowledge at the University of Alberta and the Banff School of Fine Arts. These roles allowed her to remain deeply embedded in the artistic community of the Prairies. Her influence in the region was recognized in 1977, when she became the first woman artist in the Prairies to be elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

International Studies and Travels

The years between 1937 and 1938 saw her in London, studying at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. This period of training in England provided a different perspective before she returned to her work in Canada. Later, in 1957, she attended the Emma Lake Artist's Workshop, where she studied under Will Barnet. This encounter proved significant for her development.

Her time in New York followed shortly after, as she attended the Art Students League from 1957 to 1959. This period of study coincided with a broader movement in her life. In 1959, with the assistance of a Canada Council Grant, she and her husband, Jim Nicoll, traveled through Europe. These travels through Italy, Spain, and Portugal would later influence the specific series of works she began to develop upon her return to Alberta.

Evolution of Technique and Style

Her early paintings focused on the landscapes of Alberta. This changed in the summer of 1946 when she met Jock Macdonald. He introduced her to automatism, a method of drawing and painting without premeditation. For the next six years, she became the only artist in Alberta working in this way. During this period, she filled stacks of sketchbooks four feet high with intuitive marks and drawings.

By the 1950s, her work moved toward abstraction. This shift followed her time at the Emma Lake Artist's Workshop in 1957. After this, she moved away from naturalism entirely. Her practice was not limited to the canvas; she worked through many different media, including ceramics, batiks, jewelry making, and print-making. She experimented with various techniques such as woodblock, screen printing, and block printing.

In her later years, physical constraints changed how she applied material. Due to arthritis, she had to stop painting in 1971. She adapted by using a technique she called clayprinting, a more manageable way to create art through unconventional means.

Key Works and Series

The shift toward abstraction in the 1950s led to a prolific period of serial production. Following her time in New York and her travels through Europe, she began organizing her output into distinct bodies of work. The Presence series, consisting of nine paintings, and the Alberta series, which contains fourteen works, emerged from this period of intense focus. These series often moved away from the naturalism of her earlier landscape paintings, leaning instead into the structured geometry of hard-edge abstraction. This style became her most recognized contribution to Canadian art during the 1960s.

Her work frequently returned to the idea of the series to explore specific themes or visual rhythms. She produced several smaller collections, including Chinook (I-IV), Omen (I-II), Calgary (I-IV), Foothills (I-II), Guaycura (I-II), and Runes (I-II). These groupings allowed her to investigate form and color through repetition and subtle variation. In the early 1960s, she also turned her attention to the human figure through the Ritual series. This collection included Ritual I from 1962 and Ritual II from 1963, works where the figure remained a central element amidst her evolving abstract language.

• Ritual I (1962)
• Ritual II (1963)

Later Years and Death

In her later years, Nicoll remained in the Bowness neighbourhood of Calgary, living alongside her husband, Jim Nicoll. The physical demands of her practice changed as the years passed. By 1971, arthritis forced her to stop painting, a shift that required a new way of interacting with her materials.

She did not stop making art, but she adapted her methods to accommodate her body. She turned to a technique she called clayprinting, a process that allowed her to continue her creative work through more manageable, unconventional means. This period of her life was marked by this shift from the brush to the tactile, physical nature of clay.

Marion Nicoll died in Calgary, Alberta, on 6 March 1985.

Where to See the Works Today

To find the traces of her practice, one can look to the collections held in Calgary, where many of her paintings remain. The Glenbow Museum holds a significant number of these works. Her presence is also felt in the provincial collections, with pieces held by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Art Gallery of Alberta.

Beyond the prairies, her work has moved into national spaces. The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa maintains her paintings within its permanent collection. There is also representation in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, where her paintings are kept alongside other significant Canadian works.