Marvin Cone: Quiet Integrity art talk will be given on the third Thursday, May 15, at 5:30 p.m. at Muscatine Art Center. The program will provide information about the life of Marvin Cone, including his long friendship with Grant Wood. The two met in high school, traveled to Paris, attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and joined forces in the summer of 1932 and 1933 to create Stone City Art Colony. As people they were opposites and each followed a different path, but they did influence each other.
Cone and Wood were both active in the Cedar Rapids Art Association, one of the oldest art organizations in Iowa, which later becomes the Cedar Rapids Art Museum. The program will include the history of the association and many images from the Muscatine Art Center, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Coe College and Figge Art Museum The cultural environment of Cedar Rapids provided both Cone and Wood with exposure to well known artists and the inspiration to become artists.
Marvin Cone lived in Cedar Rapids, married, raised a family, and taught at Coe College. Although, he does not have the fame of Grant Wood, it is clear that he was a skilled artist and an important figure in American painting.
After graduating from Coe College with liberal arts degree, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago with Grant Wood. Both joined the army during World War I. Because Marvin Cone could speak French, he was selected to attend the University of Montpellier, France, in February of 1919 before returning home. Marvin returned to Cedar Rapids to teach French at Coe College. The following summer Cone and Wood traveled to Paris, London, Liverpool, and Antwerp. Both painted in the Impressionistic style and held an exhibition of their artworks on the ship as they return to Cedar Rapids.
On the same return trip home, Grant Wood introduced Marvin to Winnifred Swift whom Marvin married in 1921. Winifred and Marvin had one daughter, Doris.
During the 1920s, Cone's activities included starting the art department at Coe College and keeping an active schedule of exhibitions with the Cedar Rapids Art Association. At the time, Cedar Rapids was a thriving atmosphere for the arts and in 1928, the American Federation of Arts and Carnegie Foundation provided a $50,000 grant to open The Little Gallery, and Edward Rowan was hired as a trained museum administrator. Rowan arranged for Cone and his wife to go back to Paris in 1929. In 1930, Grant Wood, received the Art Institute award for American Gothic and became famous.
1932, Marvin Cone and Grant Wood taught at the Stone City Colony and Art School. Background information and images of the Stone City Colony are included in the program. Courses at the Stone City Colony were accredited by Coe College. Unfortunately, the Depression caused the Colony to close after two summers. Grant Wood went on to teach at the University of Iowa, while Cone was appointed professor of painting at Coe College.
The art talk will take you through Marvin Cone's styles: landscapes, haunting interiors, barns, circus scenes, and finally abstract images. Unlike artists associated with regionalist and American scene painting of the 1930s, Marvin Cone would integrate his firsthand observation and move from realism to abstraction. Cone's work includes more than rural Midwest scenes.
On May 18, 1965, Marvin Cone died. As a tribute to his forty years of teaching, Coe College established the Marvin Cone Collection and the Marvin Cone Alumni collection with his artwork on display. The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art provided images for the program as the museum has one of the largest collection of Marvin Cone's works in the United States.
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