Alison Mason Kingsbury Bishop (born Alison Mason Kingsbury; 1898–1988) was an American artist who lived and worked in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...

. Known professionally by her maiden name, her work features the landscapes of the

Finger Lakes The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located south of Lake Ontario in an area called the ''Finger Lakes region'' in New York, in the United States. This region straddles the northern and transitional ...

region and residential neighborhoods of Ithaca.

Early life

Kingsbury was born in Durham, New Hampshire, to

Albert Kingsbury Albert Kingsbury (23 December 1863 – 28 July 1943) was an American engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He was responsible for over fifty patents obtained between the years 1902 to 1930. Kingsbury is most famous for his hydrodynamic thrust bear ...

and Alison Mason. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1920 and moved to New York City to study at the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

. She later served as an art instructor at Wellesley, studying architecture and mural design with Charles Howard Walker. In 1922, Kingsbury joined the École des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleau in France, where she studied fresco with Paul Albert Baudouin and sculpture and mural composition with

Alfred Janniot Alfred Auguste Janniot (13 June 1889 – 18 July 1969) was a French Art Deco sculptor most active in the 1930s. Biography Janniot was educated at the École des Beaux-Arts, a pupil of Jean Antoine Injalbert, and was the winner of the 1919 Pr ...

Career

Upon her return to the United States, Kingsbury worked for the muralist

Ezra Winter Ezra Augustus Winter (March 10, 1886 – April 6, 1949) was a prominent American muralist. Biography Winter was born in Traverse City, Michigan, trained at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1908, and the American Academy in Rome in 1914. Wint ...

. In 1925, Kingsbury accompanied Winter to Ithaca for a commission by

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

for the Willard Straight Hall Mural, during which time she met her husband,

Morris Bishop Morris Gilbert Bishop (15 April 1893 – 20 November 1973) was an American scholar, historian, biographer, essayist, translator, anthologist, and poet. Early life and career Bishop was born while his father, Edwin Rubergall Bishop, a Canadian p ...

, and moved to Ithaca permanently. Kingsbury and Winter later collaborated on a mural in Radio City Music Hall called ''Fountain of Youth'' in 1932. Though best known for her paintings in oil, watercolors, and mural media, Kingsbury also produced several screens in the early 1930s and graphic works throughout her career. She provided illustrations for some of her husband's written works, illustrated her own work of children's fiction, ''The Adventures of Phunsi'' (1946), and illustrated a tenth edition of the ''

Fanny Farmer Fanny Farmer was an American candy manufacturer and retailer. Fanny Farmer was started in Rochester, New York by Frank O'Connor in 1919, and grew to over 400 stores before being bought and consolidated. History O'Connor had previously star ...

'' cookbook series. Her very early work reflects her interest in Neoclassical artists and the Art Nouveau style, whereas her later work, which focused on her immediate surroundings, was influenced by Regionalism. Her regionalist works were the most well received of her career, drawing recognition from mainstream media, such as ''

Art Digest ''Arts Magazine'' was a prominent monthly magazine devoted to fine art. It was established in 1926 and last published in 1992. History Early years Launched in 1926 and originally titled ''The Art Digest,'' it was printed semi-monthly from Octob ...

'': "New York State landscapes by Alison Mason Kingsbury cast a hushed silence through the room with their panoramic, unpeopled expanse... The Finger Lakes District... is ideally suited to the miles and miles that she lays to view in a set of strikingly original canvases. Her color is clear and sensitive to atmosphere. The work is therapeutic for jaded and jangled city nerves". Some of her work - in particular ''The Onion Fields'' - draws on the legacy of the widely known Mexican muralists in both its style and labor-based subject matter. Shifts in Kingsbury's style and subject matter reflect shifts in her surroundings; following her move late in her life from a large home in

Cayuga Heights Cayuga Heights is a village in Tompkins County, New York, United States and an upscale suburb of Ithaca. The village is in the Town of Ithaca, directly northeast of the City of Ithaca and Cornell University's main campus. The population was 3, ...

with expansive views to a smaller downtown residence, her work shifted from landscapes featuring

Cayuga Lake Cayuga Lake (,,) is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area (marginally smaller than Seneca Lake) and second largest in volume. It is just under long. Its average width is , and it is ...

to townscapes featuring the idiosyncratic homes and neighborhoods of downtown Ithaca.

Public work

Her public works include: * ''World War I Memorial Chapel Mural'' 1930,

, Ithaca, New York * ''The Onion Fields'' 1942, Canastota Post Office, Canastota, New York

References

External links

The Art & Life of Alison Mason Kingsbury
exhibition at Cornell University
"Alison Mason Kingsbury: Life and Art"
a collection of images (Cornell University) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kingsbury, Alison Painters from New Hampshire Cornell University people American muralists 1898 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women painters People from Durham, New Hampshire Wellesley College alumni Art Students League of New York alumni American landscape painters People of the New Deal arts projects American women muralists