Biography

Margaret Kilgallen’s lovingly handcrafted panel paintings and large-scale mural installations recall her affinity for the timeworn lettering of vernacular signs, American folk art, and urban graffiti. Before her tragic death from cancer in 2001, Kilgallen had carved a niche for herself among an emerging generation of young, unconventional artists centered in San Francisco’s Mission District. Along with Chris Johanson, Alicia McCarthy, Aaron Noble, and her husband Barry McGee, Kilgallen embraced the vibrant energy of the streets, which she continually mined for subject matter and stylistic inspiration. The works she produced during her all-too-brief career demonstrate her esteemed regard for human imperfection and epitomize her genuine, unassuming character.

Kilgallen was born and raised in Washington D.C., and took frequent family trips to rural Maryland, where she was introduced to the finely crafted wares of Amish culture. During this time, she gained an appreciation for “things that are well made, or not even well made … what you have to make in order to live.”1 After studying printmaking at Colorado College, where she received a B.A. in 1989, Kilgallen moved to San Francisco and worked as a book conservator at the San Francisco Public Library, a position that allowed her to cultivate her interest in antiquated typographies. She was also respected in the close-knit Northern California surfing community and frequented San Francisco’s railroad yards, both of which yielded rich imagery for her numerous paintings and murals. In 2001, Kilgallen received her M.F.A. from Stanford University, where she is remembered for her vivacious, creative spirit. According to art professor David Hannah, “she was courageous in addressing the world she inhabited, accepting this subject matter as a given, and creating a deeply affected social art.” 2

In 1998, Kilgallen joined the printmakers at Paulson Press in Berkeley, California, where she produced a series of etchings that included Sloe. Composed of six clustered panels colored with Kilgallen’s distinctive muted palette, the format calls to mind the early American patchwork quilts she greatly admired. Each component is marked with a flat, stylized graphic that exudes an innocent, cartoonlike naïveté. However, the images and words in Kilgallen’s lexicon are far from naïve. Rather, they are inspired by real people and places usually known only to the artist herself, as well as a range of folktales and even autobiography. In Sloe, a stubborn mule is paired with an unembellished tree, along with the handwritten phrase “Let it Ride. Sloe” emblazoned in a bold font reminiscent of the storefront signs of the Wild West. Does the word “sloe” refer to the old-fashioned, homemade gin flavored with the fruit of the sloe berry? Or is Kilgallen suggesting that we should slow down in order to enjoy the ride on which life takes us? Or perhaps it is some combination of the two?

In viewing Kilgallen’s work, we are indeed reminded that the most beautiful things in life are often transitory and fleeting. Whether she was walking down a gritty urban street, playing folk songs on her banjo, or riding the crest of a wave, she seemed to cherish that which may no longer exist tomorrow. According to art historian Eungie Joo, Kilgallen was inspired by “those parts of society that survive on the margins even as they disappear from mainstream memory. She craves the texture of decline, to linger on the last breaths of endangered but determined forms of expression.”3

Although Kilgallen became well known on the international art scene, she was most at home in San Francisco, where she remained deeply rooted in the local art community. Along with fellow artists in the Mission School (as some critics have dubbed it), Kilgallen remained committed to making art that was heartfelt and accessible. “Their work exudes a sincere expression of self,” according to Laurie Lazar who co-directs the alternative San Francisco gallery space known as the Luggage Store. “They’re not trying to impress anybody; they’re passionate—qualities that have the capacity to reach a broad cross section of people.”3 —A.W.

1. Eungie Joo, Hammer Projects: Margaret Kilgallen, exh. brochure (Los Angeles: University of California, 2000), 1.
2. David Hannah, quoted in John Sanford, “Rising Young Artist Margaret Kilgallen Dead at 33,” Stanford Report, 23 July 2001.
3. Joo, 2.
4. Glen Helfand, “The Mission School: San Francisco’s Street Artists Deliver their Neighborhood to the Art of the World,” San Francisco Guardian, 14 April 2002.

(SJMA Selections publication, 2004)

Below is Getty ULAN Biography of Margaret Kilgallen:

Painter and printmaker was active in San Francisco during the 1990s, and is known for her paintings created with common housepaint on discarded materials such as scrap wood. Her work has been exhibited at Deitch Projects and The Drawing Center in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and the traveling exhibition "Beautiful Losers."

New York Times Obituary for Margaret Kilgallen who tragically died early at age 33 written by Roberta Smith: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/04/obituaries/04KILG.html?ex=1169182800&en=94f78678655e1759&ei=5070

Margaret Kilgallen, an artist who contributed to the vibrant fusion of graffiti art, folk art, painting and installation art that emerged in San Francisco in the 1990's, died Thursday in San Francisco. She was 33.
The cause was complications of breast cancer, her family said.
Ms. Kilgallen was born in Washington and raised in Kensington, Md. She received a B.A. in studio art and printmaking at Colorado College before moving to San Francisco. Exposed to bluegrass music as a child, Ms. Kilgallen was a skillful banjo player. In San Francisco she took up surfing, becoming equally adept. In 1990 she met her future husband, Barry McGee, also a surfer, and one of several young painters showing in galleries and painting noncommissioned murals on city walls. She and Mr. McGee, who were married in 1999, became part of a circle that included the artists Chris Johanson, Phil Frost, Ed Templeton and Thomas Campbell.
Ms. Kilgallen eventually painted hundreds of murals around San Francisco, most of which have been painted over.
Until 1997, she worked as a book conservator in the San Francisco Public Library, a job that enabled her to study traditional type fonts, which became central to her work. Her installations featured words and cartoonish figures, usually women, painted in different scales on pieces of wood that resembled shop signs, or directly on walls on top of expanses of odd, Depression-conjuring colors. (Consistent with her use of wood scrap for her signs, Ms. Kilgallen got her paint free from recycling centers, which mixed surplus colors at random.)
The overall result was impure Americana, a slightly acidic nostalgia that evoked sideshows, tramp art and old travel posters with infusions of feminist wit. Her women smoked, fought, surfed, played the banjo and occasionally hooked up with men.
Ms. Kilgallen had her first solo exhibition at the Drawing Room at the Drawing Center in New York 1997, and her second the following year at the John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. She had a second show in New York at Deitch Projects in SoHo in 1999. Titled "To Friend and Foe," it featured floor-to-ceiling images and words and a pair of small, scrappy wood shacks painted with her signature Victorian lettering.
Ms. Kilgallen's work is currently in "East Meets West," an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia through July 29, and at Stanford University, where she received a master's degree on June 17.
She is survived by her husband; a daughter, Asha, who was born on June 7; her parents, Dena and James Kilgallen, of Rockville, Md.; two sisters, Lil Kilgallen of Adamstown, Md., and Marianne Sullivan of Marriottsville, Md.; and a brother, Jamie Kilgallen of Charleston, N.C.

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