William Cumming (1917-2010) was a painter and a member of the Northwest School of artists. A figurative painter, Cumming was more interested in conveying a sense of bodies in motion rather than capturing realistic details. His paintings make extensive use of outline and pattern to define shapes and spaces, and the faces of his figures are often obscured or featureless. Cumming starting exhibiting his work in the early 1940s, but his career was interrupted for several years by his involvement in politics and bouts of ill health. He returned to painting in the late 1950s, exhibiting widely and teaching art classes at the Burnley School of Professional Art (later the Art Institute of Seattle).

In this image, William Cumming meets with Anna Gerber and Ina Willner before an arts and crafts festival featuring the work of 100 artists, including Cumming. Gerber and Willner were involved in planning the festival, which was put on by the Brandeis University National Women’s Committee Seattle Chapter and was held at the Jewish Community Center.

Caption information source: “Cumming, William (1917-2010)” by Deloris Tarzan Ament, HistoryLink, retrieved from https://www.historylink.org/File/5221.
Caption information source: “Arts-Crafts festival due,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 16, 1961, page WS 10.