MARION OSBORN CUNNINGHAM

(American, 1908-1948)

TROPICAL WATERFALL, HAWAII

Screen Print on Paper

17 x 15 Inches

Signed Lower Center, "Marion Cunningham", Dated 1948 and Inscribed, "SF"

Additionally Stamped, Verso, with Certification of Authenticity

 

A masterful, mid-century Hawaiian landscape showing a view of a secluded, tropical glade with two women bathing in a pool surrounded by lush vegetation and colorful wildlife. Above a waterfall, two figures carry a canoe across a rope bridge between verdant cliffs. To realize this complex work, Cunningham used as many as one dozen, hand-drawn silkscreen layers, each of which varied in pigment, hue and opacity. Created during the extraordinary creative ferment that characterized the last year of the artist's life, this work represents a remarkable achievement for both artist and medium.

 

Born in Indiana, Marion Osborn Cunningham moved to California in 1911. She first studied art with the American Impressionist, Ruth Heil Emerson, before continuing her education at Santa Barbara City College and receiving her Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University. She subsequently furthered her studies at the California School of the Fine Arts and at the Art Students League in New York City, where she met and married the American abstract artist Ben Cunningham. Returning to San Francisco, she opened a studio on Montgomery Street, the center of San Francisco’s art colony, where she continued to paint and create graphic works for the remainder of her life. Over the course of a distinguished career, Marion Cunningham exhibited widely and with success, including at the National Serigraph Society, the Association of San Francisco Women Artists, the San Francisco Art Association, the San Francisco Museum of Art Inaugural (1935); the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939); San Francisco Watercolor Show (1939); and her memorial retrospective at the Bakersfield Art Association (1957). She was a member of numerous professional associations including the National Serigraph Society, the Association of San Francisco Women Artists and the San Francisco Art Association. Marion Osborn Cunningham's works may be found in the permanent public collections of museums nationwide including the National Gallery in Washington, DC; New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; the San Francisco Museum of Art; the St. Louis Museum of Art; the Cleveland Museum and the De Young Museum, among others.

 

Sheet Dimensions: 17¾ x 16 Inches

 

Exhibitions:

1935 / San Francisco Museum of Art

November 1936 / San Francisco Art Association / 2nd Annual Exhibition of Water Colors and Gouaches

October 1937 / Art Center / “Pastels by Marion Cunningham”

1939 / GGE

1939 / Bolton & Van Horn Gallery, pastels

1939-1943 / San Francisco Society of Women Artists (Now San Francisco Women Artists)

1939 / San Francisco WC Ann

1939-1944 / San Francisco A.A

October 1940 / San Francisco Museum in the Veterans’ building / One Man Show

1940-1942 / Oakland Art Gallery

1943 / Ney Museum, Dallas

1943-1946 / National Serigraph Society

1944 / MoMA

1944 / NAD

1944 / LOC

1944 / San Diego FA Soc.

1945 / Audubon Artists

1945 / San Francisco Society of Women Artists

1945-1946 / Northwest Printmakers

1945 / CPLH

1946 / Stanford University

July 1948 / San Francisco Museum of Art / Marion Cunningham Memorial Exhibition

May 1950 / Prints Room of the State Library / Memorial Exhibition assembled by her parents

1957 / Bakersfield Art Association

 

Permanent Collections:

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco[2]

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art[2]

Bakersfield Museum of Art[2]

Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA)[2]

St. Louis Art Museum[2]

Cleveland Museum of Art[2]

de Young Museum

State Department Washington, DC

California Palace of the Legion of Honor (CPLH)

Moscow Museum

Oakland Museum of California (compliments of San Francisco Housing Authority)

 

References:

Artists in California 1786-1940, Third Edition, Edan Milton Hughes: Crocker Art Museum, Sheridan Books 2002, Vol. 1, p. 266; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 1, p. 796; Vollmer Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler des 20. Jarhhunderts, Hans Vollmer, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1992, Vol. 1, p. 502; Davenport’s Art Reference Guide, 2009/10 Edition, p. 669; Mallett’s Index of Artists, Supplement, Daniel Trowbridge Mallett, New York, 1948, p. 62; Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California, 1860-1960, Maurine St. Gaudens, Schiffer Publishing Ltd 2015, Vol. 1, p. 240-243; et al.