Marion Greenwood: Portrait and Self-Portrait--A Biography

This new biography reveals Marion Greenwood's central place in the pantheon of history's remarkable women artists.

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.

Joanne B. Mulcahy is author of Remedios: The Healing Life of Eva Castellanoz and Birth and Rebirth on an Alaskan Island: The Life of an Alutiiq Healer and coauthor of Writing Abroad: A Guide for Travelers. Her award-winning essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. For over thirty years, she taught creative nonfiction at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and in prisons, libraries, and other community settings.