Dr Mary Nicol Neill Armour LLD was a Scottish landscape and still life painter, art teacher and an Honorary President of the Glasgow School of Art and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.

Mary Nicol Steel was born on 27 March 1902 at Blantyre, Scotland to Jabina Gilbert and William Steel, a steel worker. She was the eldest of six children. As a young girl she initially wanted to train to become a teacher. She won a scholarship to Hamilton Academy and attended between 1914 and 1920. She drew the attention of an art teacher, Penelope Beaton (1886–1963), who was later to become Head of the Junior Department, Edinburgh School of Art. Beaton became a role model for the young Mary and she persuaded her Armour's father to allow her...