Margaret Dovaston

Margaret Isabel Dovaston
Margaret Dovaston pictured in 1928
Born	(1884-03-05)5 March 1884 Wandsworth, London, England
Died	24 December 1954(1954-12-24) (aged 70) Lambeth, London, England
Occupation	Painter
Parent(s)	Adolphus Dovaston Amy Isabel (Hay) Dovaston

Margaret Isabel Dovaston (5 March 1884– 24 December 1954) was a British artist who became particularly well known for her oil paintings of historical interior English genre scenes, often depicting groups of figures in Eighteenth Century dress. She spent her whole working life in the Ealing and Acton area of west London.

Margaret Isabel Dovaston was born on 5 March 1884 in Wandsworth, London. The eldest child and only daughter of Adolphus Dovaston, an architect, and Amy Isabel Hay. Margaret had three brothers, John (who later also became an architect), born 1886 and twins Geoffrey and Walter, born 1896. Her grandmother, Emily Hay, and maternal great-grandfather, T.N.Henshaw, were both talented painters.

Margaret was initially educated at the family home at 39 Sunnyside Road, Ealing, London, by a governess. By around 1897 she had started attending Ealing School of Art under the tutelage of Thomas William Cole. By 1911, she and the family had moved to 14 Madeley Road, Ealing, from where Margaret continued her education at the South Kensington School of Art studying under its founder RA. She finished her formal art education by winning a scholarship, enabling her to spend five years attending the Royal Academy Schools (1903-1908).

Whilst at the Royal Academy Schools she won a Silver Medal in 1904; 2nd Armitage Prize (£10) plus Bronze Medal, in 1905; 1st Prize (£20) plus Silver Medal, also in 1905; and Silver Medal and £25, in 1907.

She exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1908 (The Awakening of Spring) and 1910 (Violet, daughter of Mrs Frederick Hudson). She also exhibited 18 oil paintings and 20 watercolours at Walker's Gallery, London in 1910, as well as 12 paintings at the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) between 1910 and 1913. In 1910, she had been elected a member of the RBA and had established a studio at Freeland Road, Ealing Common. Also in 1910, she founded the Ealing Arts Guild, later to become the Ealing Arts Club.

During the second decade of the Twentieth Century, and beyond, she established herself as both a commercial and war artist. As well as book cover design, she contributed illustrations to Deeds that Thrill the Empire and Hutchison's Story of the British Nation. Both these publications were produced in instalments. In 1915 she produced a night-time watercolour of CSM Reid leading reserve troops across the crater-strewn ground of Hill 60 to the front line, with shells exploding all around them. The picture was bought by the Queen's Royal Surrey Regimental Association for permanent display in the regimental museum at Clandon Park, Guildford. The painting was destroyed in a fire on 29 April 2015.