biography of Charles Atherton CUMMING (1858-1932)

Birth place: Knox County, IL

Death place: probably San Diego, CA

Addresses: San Diego, CA, 1927-32

Profession: Painter, portrait painter, mural painter, landscape painter, lecturer, teacher

Studied: AIC; Académie Julian, Paris with Gustave Boulanger, Jules Lefebvre, and Benjamin Constant.

Exhibited: Iowa Art Guild; Artists of Southern California.

Member: Iowa Art Soc. (pres., 1897); College Art Assoc. of Am., Cumming School Art (founder/director), Des Moines; Iowa Art Guild (founder); Des Moines Assoc. of FA, 1917-21.

Work: mural, Polk County Court House; portraits, State Historical Gal., Free Public Library (both in Des Moines), State Univ. Iowa (Iowa City); landscapes, Des Moines Women's Club Gal., Cedar Rapids Gal. AA.

Comments: In 1895 Mr. Cumming founded and was director of the Cumming School of Art, Des Moines, IA; he established the Dept. of Graphic and Plastic Arts at the State Univ. of Iowa in 1910 and was head and director there from 1910-27; in 1915 he organized the Graphic and Plastic Arts of the Iowa State Fair and Expo and was superintendent from 1915-27. Author: Classification of the Arts of Expression;" "The White Man's Art Defines;" "The Psychology of the Symbolic Pictorial Arts;" "My Creed." Married to painter Alice McKee. Cummings motto was, "Live and serve, here and now while reaching with one hand toward the ideals of the cultured past and with the other hand toward the hopes of the future." Position: Hd., Dept. Graphic/Plastic Arts, State Univ., Iowa City; member of Capitol Improvement Commission, 1900-1902; member Iowa State Capitol Commission, 1902-06.

Sources: WW31; Ness & Orwig, Iowa Artists of the First Hundred Years, 56-57."