Margot McMahon

Director

A lifelong-environmentalist, internationally- awarded Margot McMahon sculpts human, plant and animal forms expressing her hope that decisions be made to support life on earth. She has been called the “Studs Terkel of the sculpting world,” for her humanistic portraits, most recently the Gwendolyn Brooks Monument for Gwendolyn Brooks Park.  The Smithsonian, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago History Museum, Soka Gaikkai International, Mobil Oil, the Chicago Botanic Garden, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Steans Family Foundation and Yale University have collected her sculptures. National Sculpture Society and Soka Gakkai International have awarded Margot their Cultural awards. Margot taught sculpture and drawing at Yale University, where she earned an MFA, the Art Institute of Chicago and DePaul University as well as other schools. Margot serves as a Board Member with Ragdale Foundation, Yale Blue Green-Global, Yale-Chicago, Oak Park Art League, Chicago Women’s History, and committees of OCWW and Chicago Sculpture International. She has published: Mac and Irene: A WWII Saga , AIRDRIE,  If Trees Could Talk ( a 2021 National Book Award (NFPW) recipient and Mate E. Palmer First Place Book Award) and  RESIST! A Visual History of Protest with Aquarius Press. The Gift of Art: Sculpture Ventures for Young Artists was published by Yale University Print & Publishing. The Fifth Season: The Chicago Tree Project for which she received a 2020 Mate E. Palmer First Place Book Award.