In 1933, Marion Greenwood (1909-1970) catapulted to international fame as one of the first women to paint a public mural in Mexico. Diego Rivera celebrated the then 24-year-old artist 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.
An early feminist, Greenwood was one of only two women war artist-correspondents during World War II and advocated for the inclusion of other women.
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.
The Historical Society of Woodstock will host a talk, photo presentation, and book signing by author Joanne B. Mulcahy for her newly-published book Marion Greenwood Portrait and Self-Portrait: A Biography (University of Alabama Press, 2025) on Saturday, May 3 at 2 pm at the Historical Society’s Eames House Museum at 20 Comeau Drive, Woodstock NY. Admission is free.
Based on a decade of research, Mulcahy’s book explores the life of this Brooklyn-born artist celebrated in the mid-twentieth century for her murals, easel portraits, and lithographs. Greenwood thrived at the Art Students League in New York City, in the studio of German modernist Winold Reiss at Yaddo, and at other storied institutions.
From the age of fourteen, she spent part of every year in Woodstock, splitting the time with her studio in New York City. The Maverick Festival and Woodstock’s art scene were central to her development as an artist.
In following Greenwood’s maverick path and artistic achievements, Mulcahy argues for her place in the pantheon of history’s remarkable women artists.
Joanne B. Mulcahy is the author of Remedios: The Healing Life of Eva Castellanoz and Birth and Rebirth on an Alaskan Island: The Life of an Alutiiq Healer and co-author 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. She’s also taught in prisons, libraries, and other community settings in the US and overseas.
The Historical Society of Woodstock was founded in 1929 by a group of artists, writers, academics, and local citizens. In addition to the exhibition space, which is located at the historic Eames House on Comeau Drive in the center of Woodstock, the Historical Society has an extensive archive consisting of paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, textiles, photographs, books, manuscripts, correspondence, documents, film/sound recordings, and antique tools. The archive serves as a resource for a wide range of exhibitions, public programming, and research.
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