Margaret Rose McPherson was born at Port Adelaide, Australia. She attended Fort Street High School in Sydney where one of the four sporting houses was named after her. She was a widely known and distinguished artist and particularly influential during the period 1920-1940 for her modernist works as a painter and print maker and her views promoting Aboriginal art in contemporary art and design.

She was also known as for the crafts of woodcuts, monotypes, stencils and etchings. In 1930 she was commissioned by the trustees of the Art gallery of New South Wales to paint her self-portrait, the first Australian female artist to be so honoured. She married William George Preston in 1919. In 1996 the Australian Post Office issued a stamp in her honour.