She was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in 1943; her German parents emigrated there from
Cologne, Germany in 1939. In 1951, Wagschal emigrated to Canada with her family and settled in Montreal. She taught painting and drawing at Concordia University for 37 years, and developed an innovative seminar/workshop entitled
Women and Painting. Her images are said to "bleed nostalgia and emotion" and concern the ravages of time on human flesh. A travelling
retrospective titled
Marion Wagschal: Portraits, Memories Fables was organized by Sarah Fillmore for the
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2014 and was shown at the
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2015. In 2017, the Musée d'art de Joliette held an exhibition of her work. Among the public galleries which have her paintings are the
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal,
Confederation Centre of the Arts (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island), the
Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, Ontario) and
Plattsburgh State Art Museum (Plattsburgh, New York). ==References==