Margaret Morris

Margaret Morris (1891-1980) was a pioneering teacher whose avant-garde ideas of the 1920's and 1930's paved the way for modern and contemporary dance. Born in London, Morris studied as a dancer from an early age, opening her own dance school in 1910. Three years later, during a trip to Paris, Morris met the Scottish artist J. D. Fergusson. Together they collaborated on designs for Margaret’s dance productions. Meg and JD’s lives brought them into close contact with a core of creative people like Jacob Epstein, Augustus John, SJ Peploe, Wyndham Lewis, Josef Herman, William Crosbie and Charles Rennie Mackintosh who designed a theatre for her, but which was never built. In 1939 the couple settled in Glasgow and together they played a major part in forming the New Art Club and the New Scottish Group of independent painters. Morris founded the Celtic Ballet Club which in 1960 developed into the Scottish National Ballet. She was Fergusson’s muse and also an accomplished artist in her own right.

Margaret Morris, or Meg as she was known, was also a talented painter and made many good drawings. Meg’s drawings and paintings were understandably overshadowed by Fergusson’s prominence as a painter and her own success in her main field of dance, but she also was a very good painter and made many good drawings. Her subjects included her early interest in theatre and dance, Paris cafe drawings, designs for ballet costumes and stage sets, studies of children and animals. Above all, she demonstrates the tremendous feeling for movement which flowed through her veins right up until she died in 1980.