'Serving Poi' by Marion Osborn Cunningham, 1948, Hawaii, New York Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum, San Francisco Art Association

Description

Stamped, verso, with certification of authenticity for Marion Cunningham (American, 1908-1948) and created in 1948.
Paper dimensions: 18.5 x 16 … more Stamped, verso, with certification of authenticity for Marion Cunningham (American, 1908-1948) and created in 1948.
Paper dimensions: 18.5 x 16 inches

A substantial and rare, mid-century silkscreen showing a Hawaiian family seated beneath a traditional tent of tapa cloth and being served poi by a young woman. 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.

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. less