Marion Greenwood Art

Marion Greenwood was born on April 6, 1909, in Brooklyn. She abandoned the usual schooling when she was very young to learn to paint in New York and Paris. At the age of 23, she was the first American woman to execute a mural on commission for a foreign government. Mexico invited her to decorate its public buildings, its university and its hotels. The New York-bred girl found in the Mexican and Indian life a responsive chord that her paintings, murals and lithographs so warmly echo. Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco were her mentors. Mexico's former president Lázaro Cárdenas publicly lauded Miss Greenwood's artistic contribution to his country for frescoes in the University. Returning, she won scholarships, exhibitions and City Government housing projects. She died on August 20, 1970, in Kingston, New York.