After studying Fine Arts, Maria Chester decided to go deeper and studied Art History becoming a Professor in Pre-Columbian Civilisations. From her first passion, that was Cave Art and Rock Art she developed an interest in Archaeology, and this has served as a frame for her ongoing research. She is multilingual and enjoys travelling. She taught in several South American universities as well as private institutions. Maria has served as the National Subject Adviser on American Archaeology to The Third Age Trust and joined East Berwickshire U3A where she became its Chairman. In 2015, she became a founding member of the IC-International Committee to The Third Age Trust, in the United Kingdom. In May 2016 she was elected Secretary General of AIUTA- International Association of Universities of the Third Age, position that ended in November 2023. Maria became then the new Institutional Affairs Officer of AIUTA, a position especially created for her. She is also tutors regular courses on Art History for BEA-Berwick Educational Association. She works for The Maltings Trust (former Berwick Visual Arts) delivering lectures and guided tours on seasonal exhibitions at The Granary Gallery in Berwick upon Tweed, England. Maria is an accredited lecturer of The Arts Society in London since 2018. On January 2025, Maria was invited to deliver talks on board of one of the Fred Olsen Cruises, in this occasion her task is to illustrate passengers travelling from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) to Valparaiso (Chile) therefore in order to adequate her lectures to the area, she created several new presentations. She also was invited by Arts National ( former NADFAS Australia) to deliver lectures along the so-called Cook Circuit (from Melbourne to Brisbane) to different art societies, in July 2025. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina but travelled the world. She has lived for 20 years in Caracas, Venezuela where her daughter Ines was born in 1988. Since 2003, Maria lives in the Scottish Borders, Scotland.
ART & CIVILISATIONS 