Margaret McKay (Margaret Tee) was a young girl when her family left Pennsylvania to settle in Cripple Creek, Colorado. She attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs where she studied with Louis Souter. She continued her studies in New York at Cooper Union Art School, Columbia Teacher's College and the Art Students League. While living in New York, she met Frank Alvah Parsons and worked with him as a student instructor. He encouraged her creativity and tendency towards design both during her career in New York and for many years after.

In 1913 she married John Tee and they moved back to Colorado where they lived first in Pueblo and then at Brinton Terrace, an artist's colony located on 18th and Lincoln in Denver, eventually settling in the suburb of Westminster. Tee was a charter member of the Denver Artists Guild. She also served as a consultant designer to Emden and Wormser, the Biglow Carpet Persian Rug Company and Cyrus Boutwell. She held seminars in interior design, catering to Denver's society matrons and gave various lectures on architecture and design. Tee spent much of her career teaching and held positions instructing in art and interior design at the Denver Academy of Art, the Chappell School of Art (and its predecessor, the University of Denver), Graland Country Day School (Denver), the Vocational High School of Denver, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Colorado Women's College and the University of Colorado (Boulder).

Her easel paintings feature Western landscapes, mountain views, and the occasional still life. All are clearly influenced by her experiences studying art in New York during the first years of the 20th century.