Margaret Margaret

1878 - 1965

United Kingdom Margaret Gere was a founder member of the Birmingham Group of Artists-Craftsmen. She was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire and was the half-sister of the artist Charles March Gere, studying under him from 1897 at Birmingham Municipal School of Art. A noted tempera artist, she initially worked in the medium in 1901 when copying the work of Piero della Francesca in Florence. Returning to England in 1905 she studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London under Fred Brown, Henry Tonks and Walter Russell. She showed with and was a member of the New English Art Club and Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and held her first joint exhibition with her brother at the Carfax Gallery in 1912. Joining other members of the Birmingham and Cotswold groups in many joint exhibitions she also held a number of one-man shows both in London and Cheltenham. She lived with her brother Charles in Painswick Gloucestershire where they were among the earliest members of the Cotswold Group. She and Charles made regular sketching trips abroad together but are only known to have collaborated once: on the illustrations for the Ashendene Press' Morte D'Arthur. She is represented in the collection of the Tate Gallery, Royal Holloway College and Cheltenham Art Gallery. An exhibition of her work was held at Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum in 1984.