Margaret Stoddart

Margaret Olrog Stoddart (3 October 1865 – 10 December 1934) was a New Zealand artist best known for her depictions of flowers and landscapes.

Early life and education

Stoddart was born in Diamond Harbour, Canterbury, New Zealand in 1865, one of six children born to Mark Pringle Stoddart (1819-1885) and Anna Barbara (née Schjott). Her grandfather (Mark Stoddart's father) was Admiral Pringle Stoddart, a British Royal Navy officer. Her uncle was the Scottish poet Thomas Tod Stoddart. The family moved back to Scotland in 1876, and Stoddart attended Edinburgh Ladies' College there. When she was 14 her family returned to New Zealand, moving to Fendalton in Christchurch.

When the Canterbury College School of Art (now known as the Ilam School of Fine Arts) opened in 1882, Stoddart enrolled, and completed her studies in 1890. She was awarded the Second Grade Full Certificate.

Career Stoddart began establishing a reputation as one of the country's foremost flower painters, and in 1885 was elected to the council of the Canterbury Society of Arts. In 1886 and 1891 she visited friends in the Chatham Islands. Her travels were recorded in an album which was later presented to the Canterbury Museum. marking a transition from Stoddart's previous botanical works into more painterly landscapes inspired by European Impressionists.

Mountaineering Margaret Stoddart, View of Mount Cook, c.1930. In the collection of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Stoddart was an avid hiker and mountaineer. She recorded several of her excursions, initially painting alpine flowers and eventually focusing on the alpine landmarks themselves.

In 1914 Stoddart moved to the Cashmere Hills, overlooking the Canterbury Plains and the Southern Alps.

Later years and death In later years Stoddart was a member of the Christchurch Sketch Club, vice president of the Canterbury Society of Arts and taught at the Canterbury College School of Art. She influenced many other younger artists through her teaching. Nelson artist Sir Toss Woollaston was one of her pupils, as was Evelyn Page.

Stoddart died in Hanmer Springs, North Canterbury, of a heart attack on 10 December 1934. Her death was marked by major retrospective exhibitions of her work in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland in 1935.