Marguerite Thompson Zorach

Marguerite Thompson Zorach, full-length portrait, sitting on a porch between 1910 and 1920

Library of Congress

Quick Facts

Significance:

Modernist American painter, textile artist, graphic designer

Place of Birth:

Santa Rosa, CA

Date of Birth:

September 25, 1887

Place of Death:

New York, NY

Date of Death:

June 27, 1968

Place of Burial:

Cremated, ashes deposited off of Robinhood Cove, Maine

Although Marguerite Thompson was born in California, her parents had deep New England roots. Moving to Fresno as a young girl, Marguerite began drawing early. An exceptional student, she was one of the few women of that time admitted to Stanford University. However, Marguerite chose not to complete her degree but instead traveled to Paris in 1907 to stay with her aunt. She was quickly drawn to Fauvist art (“wild beasts”), who included Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, and influenced by her aunt’s other friends, Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso. Accepted to the Academie de la Palette, Marguerite began to refine her style, emphasizing color and simplified form. Her early work achieved some recognition, exhibiting at the juried Salon d’Automne. When she first met fellow art student William Zorach, he “couldn’t believe such a nice girl could paint such wild pictures.”

Worldwide travels with her aunt throughout 1911 further expanded Marguerite’s artistic range, fully engaging her with abstract expressionism. Despite her parents’ disapproval, she moved to New York in 1912 and immediately married William; they collaborated artistically across various media for the rest of their lives. The couple’s home in Greenwich Village became a meeting place for other artists, many of whom exhibited at the famous avant-garde “Armory Show.” 

After the birth of her first child, Tessim, Marguerite began to experiment with textile art, “painting through embroidery,” which resembled her paintings and provided much of the family’s income. Previously dismissed by art critics, her work elevated textiles to an art form. Like other women artists of the time, she chose subjects from everyday life, but brought in elements of Cubism, Fauvism, and folk art. Her credo became “to fill every space with interest and intricate weaving and design.”

Like many other members of the Cornish Colony, summers were spent in New England. The Zorachs first came to Plainfield, New Hampshire in 1917 at the invitation of Clara Potter Davidge who offered them “Echo Farm” for the summer in return for their cutting the hay. Their second child, Dahlov, was born in Windsor at the end of their stay. The following year, they stayed in the Fuller House, interacting frequently with Cornish Colony artists and studying with some of the same craftspeople in wood carving and pottery. Marguerite also created clothes for the family and a tapestry embroidery of their life in Plainfield, “Family Evening,” that she considered her masterpiece. 

During the Great Depression, Marguerite worked for the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, creating murals for public spaces. Her 1938 work, “New England Post in Winter,” still hangs in the lobby of the Peterborough, N.H. Post Office. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Among other positions, Marguerite also served as the president of the modernist New York Society of Women Artists. Although afflicted with macular degeneration, she was able to continue painting until her death in 1968, two years after William. Her work hangs in multiple museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.