Margaret Trowell

Margaret Trowell (née Kathleen Margaret Sifton; 19045 April 1985) was a British artist, author and curator who is credited with founding the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Art (MTSIFA) in 1937 at the then Makerere College in the then Uganda Protectorate.

She was also an artist and educator at her School of Arts in the 1930s. She was a curator for the National Museums of Uganda and as an administrator, she served as the president of the Uganda Society between 1946 and 1947.

As an educator, she advocated for creativity in art education in Uganda by designing a curriculum that focused on both contemporary art and African art styles.

Background and education Margaret Trowell was born in London in 1904. She attended primary school at St. Paul's Girls’ School, London. She later joined the Slade School of Fine Art and then the Institute of Education at the University of London in 1926 to study art education.

While at the institute, she met and trained under Marion Richardson, who "trained her to appreciate non-Western cultures". As an advocate for formal art education, Trowell promoted the establishment of the School of Art at Makerere University in 1937. This was meant to be an exhibition of her students' artworks as well as showcasing artefacts from East, Central and West Africa. Baskets, mats, masks, sculptures, and paintings and was celebrated as the "first exhibition of African art" in Uganda.

Funded by the colonial administration in 1939, the exhibition subsequently toured London where it was hosted at the Imperial Institute South Kensington, as the "Exhibition of Ugandan Arts and Crafts". In 1942, the collection was relocated to the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Art and Trowell then served as the honorary curator until 1945.

While the collection was still housed at the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Art, she along with Klaus Wachsmann, supervised the collection of information and published a catalogue – Tribal Crafts of Uganda – that listed the materials in the ethnological collection.

Personal life Trowell (née Sifton) was married to Hubert Carey Trowell, a physician. His appointment to the Colonial Medical Service prompted the move of the couple to Kenya in 1929 and later to Uganda upon transfer in 1935. Tribal Crafts of Uganda (1953) Classical African Sculpture (1964) African Design (1965) African and Oceanic Art (1968)