Mary Nicol Neill Armour, née Steel, (27 March 1902 – 5 July 2000) was a Scottish landscape, flowers and still-life painter, and lecturer in still life at the Glasgow School of Art from 1951 until 1962, where she held the positon of Honorary President in 1982.[1][2][3]
Mary was born in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland, and won a scholarship to attend Hamilton Academy. Her art teacher, Penelope Beaton
Scottish watercolour painter of landscapes, harbour scenes and flowers (1886–1963)., spotted her talent for drawing and painting and persuaded Mary’s father to allow her to study at the Glasgow School of Art,[3] which she did from 1920 to 1925 under the tutelage of Forrester Wilson and Maurice Greiffenhagen.[2]
After leaving the Glasgow School of Art, Mary became an art teacher, working in schools in Glasgow and Cambuslang. Following her marriage to her fellow painter William Armour in 1927 she was forced to resign, as married women were not permitted to teach, and she took up painting full time.[3]
Mary established her reputation as a painter in the 1930s, exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. In 1941 she was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy, and ten years later became a lecturer in still-life painting at the Glasgow School of Art; she was elected a full member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1958.[3]
Many of Mary’s students during her early teaching at the Glasgow School of Art were returning servicemen or others whose careers had been interrupted by the war. They brought with them an enthusiasm for more recent European paintings, which rubbed off on Mary, whose later work exhibited freer brushstrokes and a heightened vibrancy of colour.[3]
Personal life
Mary and her husband moved to Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire, in 1953.[3] She retired from teaching in 1962 and returned to full-time painting, until failing eyesight forced her to give up painting in 1988.[1] She died in Paisley on 5 July 2000.[3]
