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Marion Greenwood
Portrait and Self-Portrait-a Biography
Joanne B. Mulcahy (Author)
9780817322267
Hardback, published 15 March 2025
336 pages, 32 B&W figures -12 color figures
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.454 kg
“Marion Greenwood was one of the leading figurative artists of the 1930s and 1940s, and a pioneering muralist to boot. Isamu Noguchi, Diego Rivera, Josephine Herbst, Winold Reiss, and many others are present [in these pages] as well, making this fast-paced yet carefully researched biography essential reading for anyone interested in American art and culture of the period.” James Oles, author of Art and Architecture in Mexico
Marion Greenwood: Portrait and Self-Portrait—A Biography brings to life a woman who blazed through the twentieth-century art world. Born in Brooklyn in 1909, Greenwood thrived at storied institutions and arts centers such as the Art Students League, the studio of German modernist Winold Reiss, the Woodstock Colony, and Yaddo. In 1933, she catapulted to international fame as the first woman to paint a public mural in Mexico. Diego Rivera celebrated Greenwood as one of “the world’s greatest living women mural painters.” She traveled the globe to create award-winning portraits of people from diverse backgrounds, crossing racial, cultural, and class lines to reflect her vision for a more just world. This biography, the first about Greenwood, is based on a decade of research and interviews. Author Joanne B. Mulcahy integrates the artist’s adventuresome personal life with her journey to artistic glory. Greenwood comes alive as a notable and spirited part of the heady art scenes of 1920s and 1930s Mexico, New York City, and Paris, and as one of two women artist-correspondents during World War II. After social realism and portraiture fell from favor, Greenwood doggedly stuck with what she called “the human thing” in art. Her freewheeling romantic life and independent spirit defied expectations for women, and she dismissed sexist critics who mixed acclaim for her work with commentary on her stunning beauty. A feminist pioneer, Greenwood made a living as an artist in a time when few women could. In following Greenwood’s maverick path and artistic achievements, this book reveals her central place in the pantheon of history’s remarkable women artists.