William Cumming

born Kalispell, Montana, 1917; died Seattle, Washington, 2010

BiographyWilliam Cumming was primarily self-taught. He briefly attended the Northwest Academy of Art in Seattle and took some correspondence courses, but he learned mainly through observation, practice, and critiques from fellow artists. He worked as a commercial illustrator and then as an art and music reviewer for Seattle’s Town Crier before being hired for the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, where he met the artist Morris Graves (1910–2001) who in turn introduced him to a number of other Seattle artists. Cumming had his first solo exhibition at Seattle Art Museum in 1941 but was soon thereafter diagnosed with a serious illness and spent much of the next 15 years coping. In the 1950s he began actively teaching, painting, and exhibiting again, including a second solo exhibition at Seattle Art Museum in 1961. He went on to exhibit in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and his work can be found in public, private, and museum collections throughout the region.

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