MARGARET BURROUGHS (1917 - 2010) Untitled (Portrait of a Young Woman).
Watercolor on cream wove paper, circa 1936-1939. 425x305 mm; 16 3/4x12 inches. Signed "Margaret Taylor" in ink, lower right.
Provenance: private collection, Atlanta.
This watercolor is a scarce and early work by this important artist. Margaret Taylor married the artist Bernard Goss in 1939; she signed works from 1939-42 "Margaret T. Goss". They divorced in 1947, and in 1949, she married Charles Gordon Burroughs and changed her name to Margaret Burroughs.
This painting predates Burroughs active involvement in the WPA and pivotal role in founding of the South Side Community Art Center. In 1936, Burroughs was an aspiring artist, art teacher and student in Chicago - according to Daniel Schulman, "she was one of many elementary and high school students who attended evening and Saturday lecture classes at the museum prior to entering the School of the Art Institute." Burroughs had earned her teacher's certificate from Chicago Teachers College in 1936. She also was a member of the art club known as the "Arts and Crafts Guild" founded by the painter George E. Neal. Burroughs with other young painters Eldzier Cortor, Charles Davis, Joseph Kersey, Charles Sebree and Charles White met in Neal's coachhouse studio at 32nd and Michigan Avenues. Schulman p. 4.
