by Shiona Herbert
Murals and frescoes are works of art on a huge scale that tend to take on a life of their own. Names we are most familiar with in relation to these genres include Michelangelo, Raphael, Giotto, and Diego Rivera.
But another artist that deserves to be listed with these Masters is Marion Greenwood.
Regarded as a Social Realist Artist, Greenwood traveled the world and portrayed the working class in underdeveloped locations. She captured the essence of the people and ethnic groups she studied by portraying their customs and way of life in her murals and frescoes.
Born in 1909 in Brooklyn, both her father and older sister were recognized painters. Marion showed great talent for art as well. She left high school at 15 to study at the Art Students League of New York for four years, and a further 12 months of study in Paris. Upon returning to America, Greenwood studied lithography; an artform she dedicated more energy to later in her career.
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A few years later, Greenwood embarked on a road trip with friends to Mexico City and, through artistic connections and introductions, arranged to create a fresco for a wall of the Hotel Taxqueno. Mentored by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, Greenwood followed this up with a mural for the University of San Nicholas in Morelia, Mexico.
Greenwood would devote weeks at a time traveling around sketching people working in the field, fishing in the lakes, weaving, making pottery, or buying and selling items in the marketplace. She would use these sketches to create ‘cartoons’ of her ideas, then modify the size and scale of them as she applied her ideas to the wall. Greenwood received public praise for work from former Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas, and she was invited to return to Mexico in 1936 by Diego Rivera to paint more murals.
“I’ve always had an absolute consuming passion for other races and faces and the beauty of the different kinds of races in the human being, and just people.”
Marion Greenwood in front of a mural she painted for the WPA Federal Art Project.
In between working on frescoes in Mexico, Greenwood was also hired to create murals in New York for the Works Projects Administration (WPA); a government program that employed artists to provide art for public buildings and outdoor spaces. In preparation for her painting, she visited local industries including shipyard workers and a canning factory to observe and sketch workers.
It became apparent that Greenwood found working for the WPA quite stifling compared to the free range of expression and support she received in Mexico. When working on WPA projects, bureaucrats would inspect and critique her work and ask why the people in her murals weren’t smiling. She responded that her art was not an advert for toothpaste!¹ (The Partnership of Man and Nature painted for the WPA in 1940 can still be seen today inside the Crossville Post Office in Tennessee.)
Marion Greenwood with a group of children at Red Hook Housing Project in New York.
During the 1930s-1940s, Greenwood produced numerous lithographs for the American Artist Association which were printed in large numbers for the ‘average American family’ to able to afford to buy and display art in their home.
"Black Eyed Susan," Original Lithograph signed by Marion Greenwood, 1940
In 1944 the United States Military and Abbott Laboratories invited Greenwood to create a series of paintings depicting the rehabilitation process of returning veterans. Greenwood would even be present at some surgeries to observe the journey of a patient moving from operation and recovery and progressing through their occupational therapy.
After WWII, Greenwood lived in Hong Kong for two years with her husband. She spent time observing and sketching workers in different environments: in rice fields, cracking rocks in granite quarries, street vendors, mothers in the markets, and children at school. She also lived in Iberia for a period– sketching and making lithographs of locals residents. Greenwood would later exhibit work from these travels in art galleries in America.
The work of art that has received a great deal of attention in more recent times is a 27 ft long canvas mural created for the University of Tennessee in 1954 when Greenwood was employed there as a guest professor. The History of Tennessee features 28 people from a range of socio-cultural groups across the state of Tennessee engaged in various forms of song and dance and folk traditions. It is lively and generous. Bold but comforting. Just looking at it via a print-off or on the computer screen gives a warm impression that you’re part of the very scene you’re looking at. It makes you feel ‘right at home.’ Imagine what it would be like to see in real life!
This echoes the sentiment of Mike Berry, Manager of the University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery where the mural was displayed in 2014:
“You can see pieces of artwork in a history book and that’s one experience, but when you actually go stand in front of it, that’s a whole different experience.”
Detail from the History of Tennessee, 1954 // Photo Credit: Jim L@JimL239
Take a moment to watch a clip about this spectacular work of art. It also shows a glimpse of The Partnership of Man and Nature and a few of Greenwood’s lithographs.
Ten years after her time in Tennessee, Greenwood created a mural for the Syracuse University. It was to be her last mural. It was dedicated to women of the world as it was a combination of drawings and paintings from her studies during her world travels. Assisting her were with four graduate art students.
Greenwood expressed that she really enjoyed working with other artists.
Greenwood passed away in 1970 in Woodstock at the age of 61 after a highly stimulating life of studying the world and its people. She’s fondly remembered for using her art to shine a light on hard-working lower classes and ethnic groups who are so often underrepresented in art.
Now it’s your turn!
Remember how Greenwood would create ‘comics’ of her ideas before turning them into a large-scale work of art? Think about a comic that you love. (I love Garfield comics!)
If you have some comic books at home, open them up, and think about how they could be transferred to a mural-sized work of art. Search some online comics and imagine them beamed up onto the wall or filling a vast space in an internal stairwell of a public building. Give thought to which actual location in the world you would like to see a single comic frame, or a comic strip displayed, (i.e., at the local post office, at a library, or even at a supermarket). What type of paint would you use and who would you employ to help you paint it?
Let us know on the Art History Kids Facebook page. We’d love to hear your thoughts!
citation: ¹Marion Greenwood, A Global Artist (2019) Mary Veronica Donohue, Amazon.com Services LLC
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