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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Visual Art RIP Bill Cumming

Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 11:42 AM

Seattle painter Bill Cumming was 93 years old when he died this morning of congestive heart failure. As an artist and a person, he was a treasure. I got to interview him in person once, probably five years ago now, at Tacoma Art Museum, in a group conversation about the so-called Northwest Mystics. He was one of the last remaining links to artists like Morris Graves, Guy Anderson, and Mark Tobey.

I think it's safe to say that Cumming had more personality than all those guys put together. Here are some excerpts from the interview.

The story of his amazing life, from being blacklisted as a communist to marrying seven women, is on Historylink here. I like this moment:

When Bill was still a toddler, the family moved to Portland, Oregon. ... An unknown woman receding down the sidewalk a block away appeared to him to be his mother, leaving him. The tear-clouded vision that burned itself into his memory was transformed in later life into a prominent motif in his paintings: shadow-clad, light-spangled backs forever leaving the observer.

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That's a hell of a bio on Historylink by Dolores Tarzan Ament. I loved learning one of his first jobs was a WPA thing as assistant to my darling Betty MacDonald.

Posted by gloomy gus on November 23, 2010 at 12:05 PM

Wait. "Deloris", it says. There.

Posted by gloomy gus on November 23, 2010 at 12:06 PM

Who are the other remaining links?

Posted by dnt trust me on November 23, 2010 at 12:22 PM

Who knew Cumming was going? RIP.

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball on November 23, 2010 at 3:53 PM

He used to come into the LFP Third Place when I worked there a few years back. One time he told me a story about punching some drunk jerk in the face because the jerk insisted that Eleanor Roosevelt was unattractive.

He will be missed.

Posted by Alicia

on November 23, 2010 at 7:35 PM

Bill was a frisky, charming gentleman for all ages. We were friends with is last loving wife, Dena, who gave us one of Bill's precious sketchings when one of our sons was born. Still have it - Baby in Carriage classic with lots of memories to go with it. Class act and supremely talented, smart, complicated man. May his legacy live on...

Posted by JASZ on February 16, 2011 at 9:02 PM