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Margaret Modlin

American artist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 17, 2025
Entity authorityQ15634754
Source-derived summary

Margaret Marley Modlin (January 5, 1927 – October 28, 1998) was an American surrealist painter, sculptor and photographer who spent most of her adult life in Spain.

Biography

Margaret Marley was born in Robeson County, North Carolina. Elmer Modlin and Margaret Marley were married in North Carolina in 1949 then moved to Hollywood to find their fortune. They had one son, Nelson, who was born in 1952. Elmer Modlin appeared in TV show Bewitched and the 1968 film, Rosemary's Baby. They left the United States in 1972 to seek better prospects, arriving in Madrid, Spain, in 1975. Margaret Modlin is credited with acting parts in the 1973 film Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing and the 1977 film, March or Die.

Artistic career

Modlin stayed at home creating her artworks while her husband and son found paid work. The household, in a house on Calle de Pez, revolved around Margaret the "eccentric painter". The artist used her son and her husband like models to create surrealist scenes about the Apocalypse with a Mesianism message.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Margaret Modlin” as american artist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1927, 1998, 1949, 1952—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1927-01-05. The account is most persuasive where Margaret, Modlin and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american artist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q15634754. VIAF identifies the subject as 9390072. The Library of Congress control number is no00046050. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1998, 1949 and 1952.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Margaret Modlin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Margaret Modlin primary sources, Margaret Modlin archive and Margaret research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Margaret Modlin”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Margaret Modlin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.