Agnes Miller Parker studied at Glasgow School of Art, becoming an eminent wood-engraver and illustrator. She married the artist William McCance in 1918 upon his release from prison where he had been detained as a conscientious objector during the First World War. Their ambition saw them spend most of their careers in London, but Scottish poet and modernist Hugh MacDiarmid persuaded them to take part in the cultural revival of Scotland he intended to orchestrate. MacDiarmid described the couple as ‘the most promising phenomena of contemporary Scotland in regard to art.’