author
Margaret West Kinney
1872–1952
An American illustrator, painter, and writer whose work moved between medieval adventure and the lively world of early 20th-century dance, she often created books in partnership with her husband, Troy Kinney. Her career joined fine-art training with a gift for making movement and storytelling feel vivid on the page.
1 Audiobook
The Dance: Its Place in Art and Life
by Troy Kinney, Margaret West Kinney
About the author
Born in Peoria, Illinois, Margaret West Kinney studied at the Art Students League in New York and later in Paris at the Académie Julian. Those art-school years helped shape a career that crossed illustration, painting, etching, and writing.
She is especially remembered for her collaborations with Troy Kinney, whom she married, on books about dance and on illustrated historical and adventure works. Their names appear together on titles connected with social dancing and with richly imagined scenes from the past, showing how closely art, performance, and storytelling were linked in her work.
Margaret West Kinney lived from 1872 to 1952. Although she is less widely known today than some of her contemporaries, library and artist records show a long creative life with books and artwork that kept circulating well beyond their first publication.