MacGillavry (nicknamed "Mac") was born on 22 January 1904, in
Amsterdam, the second of six children in an intellectual family (her father was a
brain surgeon, her mother a teacher). In 1948, she worked with
Raymond Pepinsky in
Auburn,
Alabama, for a year. The Dutch company
Philips also grew interested in her work on the chemistry of
solids. In 1950, she became the first woman to be appointed to the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the same year she became a
professor at the University of Amsterdam and she retired in 1972. The book was instrumental in drawing international attention to the artist.
Personal life MacGillavry married the
oto-rhino-laryngologist J. H. Nieuwenhuijsen in 1968. She died 9 May 1993, aged 89, in Amsterdam, and is buried in
Utrecht. A street in
Watergraafsmeer, the Netherlands, is named in her honor. ==References==