Margaret Davies

Margaret Sidney Davies (14 December 1884 – 13 March 1963), was a Welsh art collector and patron of the arts. With her sister Gwendoline, she bequeathed a total of 260 works, particularly strong in Impressionist and 20th-century art, which formed the basis of the present-day National Museum Wales' international collection. The sisters started the Gregynog Press in 1922 and the Gregynog Music Festival in 1933.

Like her sister Gwen, Margaret was born at Llandinam and educated at Highfield School in Hendon. They and their brother David Davies, 1st Baron Davies, were the children of Edward Davies, the only son of David Davies Llandinam, an industrialist and philanthropist.

An amateur painter, Margaret shared Gwen's passion for collecting works by the Impressionists and other contemporary artists. She started the collection in 1906 with her purchase of a painting by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon. By 1913, the two sisters had accumulated enough paintings to host an exhibition at Cardiff City Hall.

During the First World War, the Davies sisters worked as volunteers for the French Red Cross, as they had already travelled extensively in France. They offered asylum in Wales during the war to the Belgian artists George Minne, Valerius de Saedeleer and Gustave van de Woestyne.

In the early 1920s, they moved into Gregynog Hall at Newtown, Montgomeryshire. In 1922, they founded the Gregynog Press, publishing fine limited editions of works in English and Welsh.

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