Art UK
Margaret Dorothy Barker (6 June 1907 – 2003) was an English painter known principally for her portraits of friends and imaginary figures, although she mainly painted landscapes.[1][2]
Margaret was born in Sydenham, South London. In 1925 she was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, where she studied under the tutelage of William Rothenstein and Randolph Schwabe. While still a student, she submitted her work for the Prix de Rome, and exhibited at the New English Art Club. After leaving the Royal College of Art in 1929 she taught art at several girls’ schools near Birmingham, the most productive part of her career, until her marriage to Kenneth Pringle, a dental surgeon, in 1938. She and her husband lived in central London until the onset of the Blitz, when to escape the bombing Margaret and their young son moved to the North Devon coast, where she continued to paint.[2][3]
Following the sudden death of their son in the early 1960s the Pringles left London for North Kent, and although Margaret did produce some watercolour landscapes, her painting “tailed off somewhat”. Kenneth Pringle died in March 1983, and Margaret took up residence once again in Sydenham.[3]
