Margaret Kilgallen

I recently found out that a good freind of mine had compiled an amazing book of Margarets artwork. She was a San Francisco artist who wrote graffiti at first (under the name META), and then moved on to the folk art world, along with her husband Barry McGee.

Her stuff centered around classic American signage and train culture. A lot of the time involving hand painted signage and hobo imagery. The couple also had a fascination with surfing which also worked it's way into her work.

I'd forgotten how great she'd gotten with her hand-lettering skills. Something that I'm also a huge fan of. This book, which just about covers all aspects of her work, has some great close-ups of her work which tended to be quite big, and, would take up whole walls of a gallery.

Margaret unfortunately passed away some years ago. I never really got to know her, but, feel lucky to have gotten a chance to see some of her work up close. Some of which is still on display at the LACMA. I did find this clip of her from a PBS show a few years ago: