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Biography

Charles Atherton Cumming was born 1858 in Knox County, Iowa to George Paxton Cumming and Eliza Atherton. He studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Acad?mie Julien in Paris, France. Cumming was a succesful artists as well as an educator. He was an early faculty member of the Department of Art at Cornell University. He founded the Cumming School of Art in Des Moines, Iowa in 1895. He also taught and was involved at the State University of Iowa. In 1926, he married artist Alice McKee, who had studied at the Cumming School of Art.

Cumming's works include murals in the Polk County courthouse, the Iowa State House and other public buildings in Des Moines and elsewhere. He died February 16, 1932.

Scope and Content

The collection consists of correspondence between Charles Atherton Cumming and various American artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. The letters form a collection from the time when Cumming's widow gave the letters to a journalist for background information. The correspondence mainly details the decoration of the Iowa State Capitol which was overseen by the Iowa Capitol Commission, of which Cumming was a member. Other Commission members whose letters form part of the collection are Edith Bell, an artists and an instructor in the Department of Art at Iowa State University, A. B. Funk and E. P. Schoentgen Also discussed in the letters are sales of Cumming's paintings and other artistic concerns.

Included in the collection are letters from Frederick Dielman, who worked on the mosaics at the Library of Congress, discussing his work for the State Capitol in Des Moines. Correspondents also include Bert Greer Phillips, a member of the Taos art colony, whose work includes murals in the Polk County court house, the capitol in Jefferson, MO, and the courthouse in Taos, NM, and Russell Cowles, born in Iowa, but who worked in Santa Fe, NM for many years. Other correspondents include: Edwin H. Blashfield and Elmer E. Garnsey, both artists who worked on the Iowa State Capitol, Charles W. Hudson, Will H. Low, W. A. Payne, and Douglas Volk.

Sources:

Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who was who in American Art. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.

Dawdy, Doris Ostrander. Artists of the American West. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1985.

Restrictions

Access and Use Restrictions

This material may be examined by researchers under supervised conditions in the Search Room.

Copy Restrictions

Limited duplication is allowed for research purposes. User is responsible for compliance with copyright and other applicable statutes.

Copyrights associated with this collection have not been transferred and assigned to New Mexico State University.

Preferred Citation

Charles Atherton Cumming correspondence. Ms 0331. Archives and Special Collections Department, New Mexico State University Library.

Acquisition

RG95-185

Access Terms

Iowa State Capitol (Des Moines, Iowa)--History--Sources.

Artists, American--Correspondence.

Cumming, Charles Atherton, 1858-1932--Correspondence.

Dielman, Frederick, 1847-1935--Correspondence.

Letters.

Phillips, Bert Geer, 1868-1956--Correspondence.

Container List

Correspondence,   1902-1928