Magill Mackall attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Art Students League in New York before traveling abroad to further his artistic education in the academies of Paris and Munich. After serving in World War I, he returned to Baltimore to teach at the Institute eventually becoming head of the Department of Fine Arts; he also held a similar position at the College of Notre Dame. Although perhaps best known as a muralist, Mackall also produced designs for stained glass windows, portraits, and works which reflect the influence of French Impressionism and of his American instructor at the Académie Colarossi in Paris, Richard Miller (1875 – 1943), a painter of decorative, somewhat sentimental compositions.