Collection: Nicoll, Marion

Marion Florence Mackay Nicoll, was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1909. Encouraged to pursue art by her high school art teacher, Nicoll enrolled at the Ontario College of Art. From 1927 to 1929 she benefitted from the tutelage of Group of Seven members Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald and Franz Johnston. When Nicoll returned to Calgary, she studied with A.C. Leighton at the Provincial Institute of Technology—"the Tech"(which eventually split into the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, and the Alberta College of Art, now the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary) from 1929 to 1932.

Upon completing her fine arts degree, she accepted a teaching position in crafts and design at the Tech. This eventually led Nicoll to pursue specialised eduction in the subjects she was teaching—this time she moved to London, England to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now Central Saint Martins). Nicoll returned to Calgary and to the Tech in 1938, and the crafts program grew to include what she had learned—batik, block printing and screen printing.

Marion Nicoll left her teaching position again in 1940 when she married Jim Nicoll. Over the next few years the couple moved numerous times due to her husband's job with the Royal Canadian Air Force. When they finally settled again in Calgary, Nicoll was hired to teach during the summers at the Banff School of Fine Arts. Here she met fellow instructor, Jock Macdonald who was also the new head at The Tech's Art Department; in 1946 she again joined the academic staff there and would teach at the school for the next 20 years.

Through the initial academic teachings of A.C. Leighton, to her discovery of automatic drawing under the influence of Jock Macdonald in the mid-1940s, Nicoll's work evolved from landscape painting to a distinct style of classical abstraction. She was also well known and respected for her batiks and jewellery.

Marion Nicoll initially kept her abstract and automatic work relatively private. But after attending the 1957 Emma Lake Artists Workshop with Wil Barnet, Nicoll embraced hard-edge abstraction. She arranged to take leave from her teaching position and travelled to New York to study with Barnet at the Art Students League.

Though hesitant to leave New York, Nicoll returned to Calgary and to teaching a different artist. Abstraction was becoming more accepted in the province and her new work was positively received. Clement Greenberg praised her, and she was included in an important exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada which opened in England and then toured in Canada.

Upon retirement from teaching in 1966, Marion Nicoll was finally able to work in her studio full time.

Marion Nicoll was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and she received the Alberta Achievement Award of Excellence for Outstanding Contribution to Art. Nicoll's work is in the collections of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Glenbow Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, amongst others.