Jessie MacGregor (1847-1919)

Jessie MacGregor (1847–1919) was a British painter. She was born in Liverpool to a Scottish father, Alexander (1820-1898) and Liverpudlian mother, Sarah (1820-1894). She had an older brother and 7 younger siblings. MacGregor first learned drawing at the drawing academy in Liverpool run by her grandfather Andrew Hunt, a landscape painter. Her mother taught her to use water colours.  Her parents went to live in London and she began to study painting there, becoming a pupil at the Royal Academy Schools in 1870 for seven years where her teachers were Lord Leighton, P. H. Calderon, R.A., and John Pettie, R.A. She won a gold medal at the Royal Academy for history painting in December 1871, the prescribed subject being An Act of Mercy. She was the second woman after Louisa Starr's gold medal in 1867, and the last woman to do so until 1909. She first exhibited at the RA whilst still a student, in 1871. She continued with a historical genre when history paintings were broadening their reach towards literature and romance. Her subjects were almost always women or children. MacGregor was made an Academician for the Liverpool Academy of Art in 1874.By 1880 she was using a studio on Elm Tree Road and exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy. in 1884 her brother Archibald also started working from this address and they both had paintings  at the RA that year.  In 1888 she moved studio to Hill Road St John's Wood. In 1892 MacGregor had two painting at the RA, a portrait of Miss Phyllis Eden and our painting, In the Childhood of Dante. This was described as a fresh bit of Italian Childhood and harmonious colour grouping by the Western Daily Press. Portraits rarely got a mention in the papers but narrative works were much more popular. She lectured widely for the Victorian University extension scheme at the Arts Clubs of Liverpool, the National Gallery and Leighton House museum and other regional centres. MacGregor had a studio in Chalcot Gardens Hampstead from 1900 and began to get involved with women's issues. In 1904 she was on the committee of the Lyceum Club London along side Henrietta Rae, Marianne Stokes, Louise Jopling and Lucy Kemp-Welch. From at least 1908 she was actively involved in women's suffrage, taking part in the great suffrage demonstration in London in June 1908. She was now teaching art and mostly using watercolour. She also wrote and illustrated books. In 1913 she moved to Bedford Park, the artist suburb in London. She published a book of paintings of famous gardens - Gardens of Celebrities and Celebrated Gardens just before her death in 1919. MacGregor exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893's World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois where her work was hung in the famous Women's Building. Her painting In the Reign of Terror (1891; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) was included in the 1905 book Women Painters of the World. She also exhibited at Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and the Society of Female Artists.