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HeroinesMargaret Kilgallen
Filmed in San Francisco in 2000, Margaret Kilgallen (1967-2001) discusses the female figures she incorporated into many of her paintings and graffiti tags. Loosely based on women she discovered while listening to folk records, watching buck dance videos, or reading about the history of swimming, Kilgallen painted her heroines to inspire others and to change how society looks at women.
Three of Kilgallen’s heroines—Matokie Slaughter, Algia Mae Hinton, and Fanny Durack—are shown and heard through archival video, images, and audio recordings. Kilgallen is shown tagging train cars with her husband, artist Barry McGee, in a Bay Area rail yard and painting in her studio at UC Berkeley.
More information and creditsCredits
Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day & Doug Dunderdale. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Margaret Kilgallen. Archival Media Courtesy: Berea College, Alice Gerrard, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Australia, The National Museum of Australia, North Carolina Folklife Program, NC Arts Council, Mike Seeger, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Lightnin’ Wells & Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Photography: Mary Ann McDonald. Special Thanks: Fanny Durack, Algia Mae Hinton, Barry McGee & Matokie Slaughter. Theme Music: Peter Foley.
Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian
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Margaret Kilgallen was born in 1967 in Washington, D.C., and received her BA in printmaking from Colorado College in 1989. Shortly afterward, the artist moved to San Francisco, where she took up surfing and immersed herself in the Mission District street scene. Kilgallen was influenced by the hand-painted signs and colorful murals she saw while biking around her Mission District neighborhood. Additionally, her early experiences as a librarian and bookbinder in the San Francisco Public Library helped the artist develop an encyclopedic knowledge of American folk signs, printmaking, and letterforms. Working on found and salvaged material and graffiti, Kilgallen created works that highlighted the beauty of everyday life.
“I like to paint images of women who I find inspiring, and I don’t like to choose people that everybody knows. I like to choose people that just do small things, and yet somehow hit me in my heart.”
Margaret Kilgallen
Graffiti & Street Art
Barry McGee
Artwork Survey: 2000s
