“Margaret McKay Tee was born in 1882 and raised in Pennsylvania until her family moved to Colorado. In 1902, following her education at Colorado College, she trained at New York’s Cooper Union and Columbia Teacher’s College, where she met Frank Alvah Parsons.

Tee subsequently worked for Parsons as a student instructor when he joined the faculty of the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later, Parsons The New School for Design). After moving back to Colorado, Tee carried on a correspondence with Parsons for many years.”

Before her marriage to John Tee in 1913, she apprenticed with Jean Griest, a New York decorator.

The Tees returned to Colorado and eventually settled at Brinton Terrace, an artists’ colony in Den...