Ethel Magafan was an identical twin to Jenne Magafan, born in Chicago in 1916 to Julia Bronik and Petros Magafan. The family moved to Colorado for the health of their father, who suddenly passed in 1932, devastating the family emotionally and financially. Growing up in Denver, Colorado the girls attended East High School and were mentored by their art teacher Helen Perry. Helen Perry was determined to guide the girls’ artistic skills and arranged lessons by landscape and genre painter, Frank Mechau. Mechau’s regionalism through simplicity of form and color influenced Ethel's and Jenne's artistic styles and may be seen in the works by Ethel for the Reclamation commission.
In 1938, Ethel applied and was awarded a federal art commission for a mural in the town of Auburn, Nebraska. This was her first experience working as an artist on a federal commission. Her mural, Threshing, was received with praise and she received more commissions to complete work in various federal buildings around the country. In 1971, she was commissioned by the Bureau of Reclamation to travel and create works based off Reclamation sites throughout the western United States. The sketches and paintings she completed were displayed at the exhibition, The American Artist and Water Reclamation, at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. and toured nationally by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services.
Ethel passed away in 1993, she led a prestigious and impressive life and career as an American artist.