Maria Tippett has written more than a dozen books, many of them on themes in Canadian and British cultural history. Her classic biography, Emily Carr, still in print today, received the Governor General's Award in Canada. Other landmark publications include her ground-breaking study, By a Lady: celebrating three centuries of Canadian Women in the visual arts; and her History of Sculpture in Canada further extended her range. She has curated numerous exhibitions in North America and in Europe and contributed to arts documentaries. Her aptitude for writing fiction was shown in an earlier book of short stories, Breaking the Cycle and other stories from a Gulf Island. She held the Robarts Chair of Canadian Studies in Toronto and was a senior research fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge University. She and her husband, the British historian, Peter Clarke, now divide their time between Pender Island in British Columbia and Cambridge in the United Kingdom.