from 1935 to 1936 and helped to establish the Picture Loan Society. MacLeod was opposed to World War II, though in 1944 she accepted a commission by the National Gallery of Canada to paint many scenes depicting the Women's Division of the Armed Forces as means of showcasing the war from a female perspective. Manhattan Cycle Following the Second World War she returned to depicting the scenes of New York City and in 1947 exhibited her oil and water colour paintings in Toronto, Ottawa, and Fredericton under the title "Manhattan Cycle." The Manhattan Cycle focused on the people and scenes around MacLeod's apartment on East 88th Street in New York. She wrote to her friend and fellow artist, Isabel McLaughlin in 1946 that she had been involved with 88th street for six years and still found it fascinating. The Manhattan Cycle consisted of 110 artworks by 1947 and was the first time MacLeod exhibited a series of works in Canada focused entirely on her time in New York. The Cycle also toured to the Winnipeg School of Art at the request of Joe Plaskett and then on to Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, and Vancouver in 1948. Selected exhibitions A major retrospective of her work was held at Galerie Walter Klinkhoff in 1982 and a circulating retrospective exhibition was done by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa in 1984, along with a book of her letters and an introduction by Joan Murray. Death MacLeod died of cancer in New York City in 1949, leaving a legacy of more than a thousand works of art that include many paintings and other art forms including designs for hooked rugs. Today MacLeod is a well-regarded artist whose wartime work, which includes more than one hundred oil paintings, sets her apart from many of her contemporaries. See also Canadian artist Woman artists Canadian official war artists War artist War art External links Canadian Women Artists History Initiative Canadian War Museum The Canadian Encyclopedia Gallery 78: biography and examples of her paintings National Gallery of Canada Laura Brandon fonds at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario Ruth Comfort Jackson fonds at the National Gallery of Canada Madge Smith fonds at the National Gallery of Canada Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Lethbridge College Buchanan Art Collection Further reading Secondary sources "About Face: Portraits and Other Pictures." Oshawa: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2005. Brandon, Laura (2005). Pegi by Herself: