Marguerite Zorach's Biography
 Marguerite Zorach, oil by Dahlov Ipcar
Personal
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Born
September 25, 1887 in Santa Rosa, CA
Father: William Palmer Thompson
Mother: Winifred HarrisFamily
moved to Fresno, CA in 1880
Married William Zorach in 1912
Exhibited in the 1913 Armory Show in New York City
Son
Tessim born 1915
Daughter Dahlov born 1917
Marguerite Zorach & family,
1919, New Hampshire
The
Zorach family spent winters in New York City and summers
in New Hampshire, Chappaqua, NY; Provincetown, MA and
Stonington, ME.
In 1923 they purchased a farm
in Robinhood, ME on Georgetown Island.
Marguerite
died in Brooklyn, NY, June 27, 1968
Art Studies
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Went
to study art in Paris in 1907. Studied painting with John
Duncan Fergusson and Jacques-Emile Blanche at La Palette,
where she met William Zorach. Painted in Paris for four
years. Work shown in Paris Salon in 1909, and in Salon D'Automne
1910-11. In Paris she met many of the early modern artists
and writers, including Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Zadkine.
Career
_________________
 Marguerite
Zorach was one of the earliest proponent and practitioners of modern art in America,
and she has been called the First Woman Artist of California.
She and William Zorach exhibited in the 1913 Armory Show
in New York City, and in the 1915 Forum Exhibition. In
1920 her work was shown in the New Tendencies Exhibition
in Philadelphia. She also had solo shows at the Daniel,
Montross, Brummer, Knoedlers, Kraushaar, and Downtown Galleries
in New York City.
Marguerite Zorach
General
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Designed
and painted scenery for the Provincetown Players in 1916.
Experimented with cubism and fauvism; returned to more
representational style in 1919, while still retaining many
qualities of previous non-representational styles. She
was particularly noted as the only person to have made
a fine art of embroidered tapestry in the Twentieth Century.
Commissioned to do a tapestry of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr.;
family at Seal Harbor, ME in 1926. She also experimented
with hooked rugs, batiks, textiles, and prints; but in
later years worked primarily in oils.
Marguerite, Land & Development, 1925
Honors
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Silver
Medal, San Francisco Legion of Honor, 1919
Honorary
Doctor of Fine Arts, Bates College, 1964
Positions
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President,
Society of Woman Artists in the 1920s.
Member,
Board of Governors of Skowhegan School of Art, Skowhegan,
ME in 1950s and 1960s.
Murals
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U.S.
Post Office, Peterborough, NH
US Post
Office, Ripley, TN.
US Post Office, Monticello, IN
Permanent Collections
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Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Bates College Museum of Arts, Lewiston, ME.
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Me
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Canton Art Institute, Dayton, OH
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York, NY
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME
Harn Museum of Art, Uv Florida
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
National Museum of American Art, Washington DC
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Wichita Museum of Fine Art, Wichita, KS.
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
Marguerite, Kraushaar Gallery, 1964
Sample Biography
See Jessica Nicoll's "To
Be Modern"
The
Origins of Marguerite and William Zorach's
Creative Partnership, 1911-1922 by Jessica
Nicoll: Former Curator, Portland Museum of Art; now Director of the Smith College Museum of Art
Zorach works for sale at the Gerald Peters Gallery
For a small overview see William & Marguerite Zorach's gallery
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Reproduced with permission of the Imogen Cunningham Trust
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Marguerite and William
