A Life in Color and Education
Margaret Casey Gates was an American painter, artist, art educator, and administrator. Born in Washington, D.C., she began her artistic journey studying privately with Bertha Perry before attending the Corcoran School of Art. Her formal education continued at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center under Henry Varnum Poor. After a brief period as a commercial artist, she pursued further studies at the Phillips Memorial Gallery School, where she eventually joined the teaching faculty and served as the executive secretary of the gallery.
Her artistic practice was diverse, primarily utilizing watercolor, oil, and tempera to explore themes ranging from figures to industrial scenes. During the mid-1930s, she participated in a series of commissions for the Treasury Department, traveling to the U.S. Virgin Islands. This period yielded vivid watercolors, such as The White Gate, which captured the decorative patterns of wrought iron against the sun, sand, and native population of St. Thomas.
Legacy and Public Works
Gates achieved significant recognition through public commissions and exhibitions. In 1939, she won a competition to create a post office mural for Mebane, North Carolina, titled Landscape—Tobacco Curing, which was installed in 1941. This work depicts a man and a young boy walking toward a tobacco farm in daylight. Additionally, her watercolor Live Oaks was acquired by the government for the federal hospital of Fort Stanton, New Mexico.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, her work was exhibited in numerous prestigious venues, including:
Beyond the canvas, Gates was a writer who contributed articles to The Washington Spectator and maintained a regular column titled "The People vs. Art" in the journal Right Angle. Her professional life also included roles at the Watkins Gallery at American University and the Madeira School.
