Margaretta Hershey lives and works in the Centreville, Delaware home she shares with her husband, Preston, and two sons. Working primarily in oil, Hershey creates landscapes and still lifes from life.

Hershey was awarded a Gold Key by The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 1994 and her work was exhibited in the Connecticut regional show in the same year.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Bryn Mawr College she relocated to New York City to work in creative marketing for Meredith Corporation. After several years at Traditional Home Magazine and Country Home Magazine, she shifted her focus back to the creative arts. As a freelance designer for Old Navy and Gap, she created various products from concept and design to final product. Her designs include top selling toys, games, women’s shoes, accessories and woven wear.

During this time, Hershey was also a featured artist in Dailycandy.com, Nylon Magazine, Abercrombie & Fitch Magalog and Us Weekly. They highlighted the one-of-a-kind needlework bracelets, “wearable art,” that she sold at trend forward boutique Kirna Zabete in SoHo, NYC.

In 2005, Hershey returned to the Brandywine River area. Incorporating her technical drafting skills, eye for design and education in the arts, she has turned her focus to oil painting. She furthered her study of painting ‘en plein air’ working under Maddine Insalaco and Joe Vinson in Bonconvento, Italy. Whether painting landscapes on site or in the studio, she works to emphasize light as a tool to reveal volume and depth of field. In 2007, she worked with John Morra at the Grand Central Academy of Art in Manhattan to further her study of still life painting. With her still life work, she uses light in the same way as in landscape painting to create a sense of space and volume. In her work, Hershey chooses subject matter that resonates on a personal level. Be it autumn squash from the local farmer’s stand or the rolling valleys of her childhood home, each painting is a piece of her life through her eyes.