William Cumming began as a self-taught artist who grew up in Tukwila, a small town outside Seattle. In 1937, at the age of twenty, he met Morris Graves, who was at that time working in Seattle for the Federal Art project of the Works Progress Administration. Through Graves he soon became part of the circle of friends who came to be known as the Northwest School of artists: Mark Tobey, then nearing fifty, the patriarchal leader of the group; Kenneth Callahan and his wife Margaret, a writer and critic who became Cumming's particular mentor; Guy Anderson, Lubin Petric, and others. He has taught for many years at the Art Institute of Seattle and Cornish College of the Arts."Bill Cumming is at once an exceptional and successful regional artist and one of the most erudite, perceptive, and entertainingly cantankerous characters in this part of the world. [He] tells what it was like to be an artist in the Great Depression, tells tales out of school about such international luminaries as Mark Tobey and Morris Graves, tells how the Northwest School (of which he was the youngest member) developed, tells about the early success -- and ultimate failure -- of the Communist movement in the Far West, and shows how the political, economic, and cultural events of a half-century affected the life of a region and of its creative minority. Cumming is a natural raconteur, equipped with more literary wit and charm than most professional writers." -- Tom Robbins"Besides being one of the Northwest's best painters, Bill Cumming has certainly had a knack for being, historically speaking, in the right place at the right time. Beyond being good local history, his "Sketchbook" is a moving, sometimes chillingly perceptive, and certainly fascinating glimpse into the nature of artists themselves." -- Wesley Wehr
