Helena Maguire was the second daughter of Thomas Herbert Maguire, an oil painter and lithographer. Like her sister, Adelaide Agnes, she was strongly influenced by William Henry Hunt, Foster and the Pre-Raphaelites. She exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1881 and 1902. A third sister, Bertha Maguire, exhibited flower pieces at the Royal Academy, and a brother, Sidney Calton Maguire, was an enamel painter and publisher.
