Inspired by Alberta's built environment and diverse landscapes, the artist’s work is both vital and original, reflecting a deep and intimate connection to her surroundings.

The artist spent considerable time in the Banff area, often riding her single-speed bike from Calgary to Banff along the old highway to camp at Tunnel Mountain. There, she painted and sketched extensively, frequently using these paintings as the foundation for her studio block prints.

Works from the artist’s estate and private collections allow glimpses of early familiar sights, some of which still exist today and others that have not survived the advance of ‘progress.’  There are views down the Bow River (1945), the Massive Range (1949) panorama, landmarks like Calgary’s Centre Street Bridge (1940) and Knox United Church (1941).  We see C.W. Moffat’s Dairy Barns (1942) and L.C. Fulman’s Lumberyard (1938), the CPR Clubhouse (1941) now the Waldhaus Restaurant at the Banff Springs Hotel, and the Tudor Gothic architectural style of Parks Canada’s Administration Building (1941), six years old when the artist did the block print.

Margaret Shelton was a committed artist, best known for her intricate linocut prints as well as her watercolour and oil paintings. With a deep passion for nature and the diversity and beauty of the Alberta landscape and built environment, Shelton’s interpretations are distinctively vital and energetic. Her contributions to the development of printmaking in Canada are significant, having created hundreds of prints in her career. Her works are in collections at the National Gallery (Ottawa), the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Glenbow Museum (Calgary), where the retrospective exhibit Margaret Shelton: Block Prints 1936-1984 took place after her untimely death in 1984.  She exhibited with the Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers (CPE), the Canadian Society of Graphic Art (CSGA), the Alberta Society of Artists (ASA) and the Calgary Sketch Club.

Born on August 15, 1915, on a farm near Bruce, east of Edmonton, Margaret Shelton grew up in the Drumheller Valley of south-central Alberta. From an early age, she displayed a talent for drawing and was encouraged by both her parents and teachers.

In 1933–34, while attending Normal School (a teacher's college in Calgary), she also took evening classes at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art (PITA). There, she studied drawing and painting with A.C. Leighton, a renowned English landscape painter. From 1934 to 1943, Shelton attended PITA on scholarships, learning from Leighton, H.G. Glyde, and others. In 1941, she expanded her skills by studying Japanese woodblock printmaking techniques under W.J. Phillips.

Shelton taught school periodically for a few years and briefly worked as a commercial artist at a Toronto advertising agency. Ultimately, she chose to dedicate herself fully to painting and printmaking, establishing a career that would leave a lasting mark on Western Canadian art.