Marvin Cone
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Marvin Dorwart Cone (October 21, 1891 – May 18, 1965) was an American painter in the regionalist style.Walch, Timothy (2009)
"Cone, Marvin Dorwart"
''The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa''. University of Iowa Press
Cone was born in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...
, and lived there most of his life. He graduated from Washington High School in 1910. Cone attended college and traveled to Paris with his contemporary and high-school friend, Grant Wood. After his return to the United States, Cone helped to found the
Stone City Art Colony The Stone City Art Colony was an art colony founded by Edward Rowan, Adrian Dornbush, and Grant Wood. The colony gathered on the John A. Green Estate in Stone City, Iowa during the summers of 1932 and 1933. History The colony was started ...
. He was a professor at
Coe College Coe College is a private liberal arts college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was founded in 1851 and is historically affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). The college is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and the Associatio ...
for more than forty years. Most of his paintings can now be seen at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. Some of his sketches can also been found in the permanent collection of the
University of Northern Iowa The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) is a public university in Cedar Falls, Iowa. UNI offers more than 90 majors across the colleges of Business Administration, Education, Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences and gr ...
Gallery of Art in Cedar Falls. "Untitled (Interior)," a painted scene of doors in an interior, can be seen at the Blanden Memorial Art Museum in Fort Dodge, Iowa. In 1906 he began a lifelong friendship with Grant Wood. He graduated from
Coe College Coe College is a private liberal arts college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was founded in 1851 and is historically affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). The college is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and the Associatio ...
in 1914 and then studied for several years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He enlisted in the Iowa National's Guard's 34th Infantry Division in 1917, during which time he won a
training camp A training camp is an organized period in which military personnel or athletes participate in a rigorous and focused schedule of training in order to learn or improve skills. Athletes typically utilise training camps to prepare for upcoming events, ...
design competition with a "Red Bull" insignia, which the now multi-state unit wears to this day. He left for France in 1917, where he served for several years as an interpreter.Longden, Tom.
Marvin Cone
''Des Moines Register''
In 1919, he studied for about five months at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Montpellier, France. When he returned to Cedar Rapids that year, he continued to pursue his interest in art. He considered commercial art, but chose instead to accept a position teaching French at Coe College for the 1919–1920 academic year. Upon his return to Cedar Rapids, Cone quickly renewed his friendship with Grant Wood and resumed his active involvement with the local art association (now the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art). Cone and Wood went abroad in the summer of 1920, hoping to improve their technical skills. The visit proved influential, resulting in a stunning series of impressionistic views of picturesque cityscapes and landscapes, Paris streets and gardens, and the French countryside. Architecture and landscape fascinated Cone for the rest of his life. He returned to Paris with his wife Winnifred in 1929 and traveled to Mexico in 1939. Cone lived all his 74 years in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he married, raised a family, and for more than four decades taught art at Coe College. Although he never achieved great fame, he was highly respected by his contemporaries. Marvin Cone sought to evoke his inner vision of nature rather than to create a realistic depiction of the rural landscape. To Cone, nature was a vehicle for revealing certain truths. His paintings integrated his firsthand observation of nature. He once said, "The purpose of art is not to reproduce life, but to present an editorial, a comment on life.... The artist does not set out to imitate nature. What would be the purpose of that? Let the camera with its clever mechanism imitate. Art, such as poetry, music, and painting, is simply a portion of the experience of the artist. When we actually see ideals, they become real to us. Art traces an abstraction and makes it audible or visual. It symbolizes the whole of life. We believe in something we can see.”


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Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cone, Marvin 1891 births 1965 deaths Artists from Cedar Rapids, Iowa Painters from Iowa 20th-century American painters American male painters Coe College faculty American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni 20th-century American male artists