Marion Osborn Cunningham (1908 - 1948) was an American artist.

Biography

Cunningham née Osborn was born on May 29, 1908 in South Bend, Indiana. Marion’s first formal art instruction was received at

Bakersfield High School Bakersfield High School (BHS) is a public four-year high school located in Bakersfield, California, United States. Opened in 1893, Bakersfield High School serves grades ninth through twelfth within the Kern High School District. Notable alumni ...

(then Kern County Union High School) under the tutelage of Mrs. Ruth Emerson. From there, Marion attended Santa Barbara College. She received an AB degree from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Marion continued her studies at the California School of Fine Arts (now the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

). Marion studied at

The Art Students League of New York 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 married fellow artist Ben Cunningham. The couple eventually divorced. Cunningham began creating

serigraph Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...

s in the 1930s. A recurring subject were cable car scenes. She was a member of the

National Serigraph Society The National Serigraph Society was founded in 1940 by a group of artists involved in the WPA Federal Art Project, including Anthony Velonis, Max Arthur Cohn, and Hyman Warsager. The creation of the society coincided with the rise of serigraphs ...

, the

San Francisco Art Association The San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) was an organization that promoted California artists, held art exhibitions, published a periodical, and established the first art school west of Chicago. The SFAA – which, by 1961, completed a long sequence ...

, and the

San Francisco Women Artists San Francisco Women Artists (SFWA) is one of California's oldest arts organizations. Created in 1887 as the Sketch Club, the organization was created by local San Francisco Bay Area women to support and promote the talents of established and emerg ...

. She died in 1948. The

Bakersfield Museum of Art The Bakersfield Museum of Art is an art museum, in Bakersfield, California. It is located in Central Park, on the corner of 19th St. and R St. It has four galleries, which contains a permanent collection mainly from regional artists, as well as ro ...

's former name, Cunningham Memorial Art Gallery, had been in her namesake and was founded by her family after her death. Cunningham's work is in the collection of the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

and the Bakersfield Museum of Art. Her work is also in the collections of the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

, the

de Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the California Pala ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, the

Saint Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, ...

and the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

Exhibitions

Cunningham exhibited her work from 1935 until her death, and posthumously in a memorial exhibit at San Francisco Museum of Art.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cunningham, Marion Osborn 1908 births 1948 deaths Artists from California People from South Bend, Indiana